High electricity prices are taking a toll on industry and commerce and harm their competitiveness. A key lever for reducing costs is using renewable energies in combination with dynamic electricity tariffs and time-of-use grid charges. This means that businesses can shift production to times with cheaper electricity, temporarily store electricity and then use or market it when prices are high, with possible savings of 20 percent or more. This principle works for any consumer, though implementation is often more challenging for industry and commerce due to complex load profiles and framework conditions. To utilize the full potential, businesses need individual, made-to-measure solutions. They can find the perfect partner at EM-Power Europe – from planning, systems integration and energy management to flexibility marketing and dynamic electricity tariff suppliers. The exhibition for energy management and integrated energy solutions is taking place from June 23–25 at Messe München as part of The smarter E Europe, the continent’s largest alliance of exhibitions for the energy industry. Around 2,800 exhibitors and over 100,000 visitors are expected to attend.
Dynamic electricity tariffs are a key element of efficient and economical energy use. They are based on quarter-hourly fluctuating wholesale prices on the European power exchange, EPEX Spot. Unlike traditional fixed-price contracts, they reflect the actual market situation. Usually, electricity prices are particularly cheap during the night or when a lot of renewable energy is being fed into the grid.
Alongside energy prices, grid charges are becoming increasingly important. Time-of-use models, which are linked with the time of day and capacity utilization, create incentives for grid-serving behavior. Individual grid charges for atypical grid usage offer companies additional savings potential if they shift their loads, expanding optimization opportunities. Companies can reduce both energy and grid costs, but they need to keep price and grid signals in mind. According to the European association Eurelectric, grid charges in the EU account for around eleven to twelve percent of an industrial energy bill – for private households this figure reaches 20 to 22 percent.
Companies can use these price signals intelligently to make their electricity consumption more flexible and shift it to times with cheaper prices. When combined with battery storage, the effects of charging storage devices at low prices and supplying this energy at high prices or peak loads only get stronger. “Today an SME with an annual peak load of 100 MWh, an average energy price of 25 euro cents per kWh and grid charges of 10 euro cents per kWh will pay around 35,000 euros in electricity costs per year; reducing this by 20 percent would save a whopping 7,000 euros.” says Fabian Stocker, Head of Key Account Management of the Swiss climate tech company Exnaton. “Cleverly combining spot market prices, demand-side response and battery storage massively reduces costs.”
Industries with predictable load profiles, such as production plants, commercial locations and logistics companies, have particularly high potential. One example is the cooling and logistics company Peter Bade GmbH, which has digitally integrated an energy management platform to optimize its infrastructure. Using AI-supported control, it shifts electricity consumption to times of low market prices and times when they produce high amounts of PV themselves. This has reduced the power consumption of their cold storage systems by over eleven percent in the first quarter of 2024 alone, with energy charges falling by around 16 percent. At the same time, grid charges were reduced by 44 percent in the previous year through peak shaving and using plants flexibly.
Across Europe, energy and grid charges are becoming more dynamic. The Netherlands, Spain, the UK and the Scandinavian countries, for instance, already have output- or time-dependent grid charges. Germany is embedding flexibility mechanisms into law with Section 19 of the Electricity Network Charges Ordinance and Section 14 of the Energy Industry Act. Demand charge signals and peak-load periods are becoming more important across Europe and increasingly relevant for companies with predictable load profiles.
One of the drivers of this development is the EU Directive 2019/244 on common rules for the internal market for electricity. It calls for grid tariffs, rewards flexibility and better reflects actual system costs. For businesses, it provides a growing market for flexible energy and grid products – and the possibility to use flexibility as an economic resource.
Strategy and practice: Exhibition collaborates with specialist conference
At EM Power Europe, visitors can learn how dynamic electricity tariffs help industrial and commercial operations to shift their consumption to cheaper times, thereby reducing costs. From June 23–25, numerous exhibitors will present their solutions for energy and flexibility management for companies. The special exhibit Renewables 24/7 offers impressive practical examples, while The smarter E Forum provides in-depth and practical information on all three exhibition days. Here, businesses can learn how to reduce costs and generate additional revenue through flexible energy use.
Key strategic and regulatory questions will be answered during the EM-Power Europe Conference, which begins the day before the exhibition. The specialist conference on June 23 will delve into the topic of flexibility in the industry and commercial sectors over two sessions. The session Turning Industrial and Commercial Demand-Side Flexibility into Value shows how flexibility is integrated into grid operation through automated processes, new contract models and clear revenue mechanisms. From Local Experiments to Lasting Markets: The Future of DSO Flexibility sheds light on the transition from pilot projects to scalable flexibility markets with practicable regulatory requirements.
In their latest report, Collection of Best Practices for Flexible Energy-Intensive Industries, the industry association smartEn provides more examples showing that controlling energy demand flexibly is not restrictive, but rather a strategic advantage. The publication, funded by The smarter E Europe, can be downloaded here .