Most of Europe is switching to buying electricity per quarter from 1 October. Today, you have to settle for hourly prices.
It will provide a better adaptation of consumption and production, says Mårten Bergman, unit manager at Svenska Kraftnät.
The balancing of the power grid, where electricity production and consumption must be in balance every second, has become more sensitive as weather-dependent electricity production increases. The idea is that a more accurate price will better control how producers and consumers act, according to Bergman.
It is positive for the power system, says Christian Holtz.
Maybe some of
But none of them think that the change will affect the average person to a greater extent, at least not the vast majority who have flexible monthly price agreements or completely fixed agreements. But if you have a customer with an hourly price agreement today (there are a few hundred thousand) then most electricity traders plan to automatically switch customers to quarter-hourly price agreements.
But it may well be that customers do not want quarter-hourly prices, that they now want to return to monthly prices, even if, for example, the electricity company Eon has not noticed it yet. Ten percent of customers have hourly prices today.
Emma Borgström, business development manager at Eon, sees such customer conversations ahead.
'I have had hourly prices and I do not understand what it gives me and now it should be on the quarter. What does it help, I would rather have a flexible (monthly price)'. I think that reaction will partly come, she says.
Control with apps
For the electricity-interested who want to be able to make money on the increasingly shorter price intervals, it is fully possible, according to Holtz. But hardly by staring at the electricity meter and electricity price, but with the help of the apps and automation systems that exist.
This will be able to happen automatically. The control will be done with the help of some algorithm and they will catch this, he says.
At the other end, there are electricity producers who can better utilize their production according to the price. It is probably on the producer side that quarter-hourly prices will have the greatest significance.
It is likely that the larger producers will use this from the start, says Mårten Bergman.
