Tariff development for consumer groups in internal European electricity markets

Competition in electricity supply is being introduced in Europe, as a result of the Directive 96/92/EC of the European Parliament. The liberalisation of electricity markets will benefit consumers if energy supplier companies can develop distinctive tariff-service offerings for consumer groups. Emergent and rapidly changing businesses represent challenging new market opportunities for electricity suppliers. Rapid design of new tariff and service products for competitive market conditions, suggests a nontraditional approach. Experimental responsive tariffs, developed as a result of collaborative supplier-consumer load measurement projects, can contribute to bringing new tariff-service products to the market quickly. These could include innovative tariff-service packages for thermal storage, products for auto-producer consumers, real time pricing and dynamic tariffs and a variety of “green tariffs”