Source - AFRY Styr och Informationstjänster Konsumenter (2023)

Consultant report commissioned by Energimyndigheten. AFRY Management Consulting, November 2023. Maps the market for “styr-och-informationstjänster” (control and information services) for electricity consumers, with analysis of actors, service types, barriers, and UX recommendations for Ei’s Elpriskollen platform.

Bibliographic details

• Title: Konsultrapport: Styr- och informationstjänster för konsumenter på elmarknaden
• Author/consultant: AFRY Management Consulting AB
• Commissioning body: Energimyndigheten (Swedish Energy Agency)
• Date: November 2023
• Length: ~65 pages
• Context: One of several commissioned studies supporting Energimyndigheten’s work on consumer flexibility and digital services

Scope and method

The report maps the current Swedish market for consumer-facing digital electricity services — both services that provide information to consumers and services that actively control consumption or generation on their behalf. The methodology combines:

• Market scan: Identification and categorisation of 44 services from 172 actors active in the Swedish electricity consumer market
• Actor interviews: Qualitative interviews with selected service providers, DSOs, and aggregators
• UX analysis: Evaluation of design concepts for displaying these services on Elpriskollen (Ei’s national price comparison tool)
• Seven conditions for smart energy use: Structured framework for analysing enablers

Key finding: market landscape

Service inventory

The scan identified 44 services from 172 actors across two overarching categories:

Information services (36 of 44): Services that display consumption data, cost forecasts, price signals, grid tariff information, and comparisons — without actively controlling anything. Examples: electricity bill breakdowns, price alert apps, consumption dashboards.

Control services (8 of 44): Services that actively control devices or consumption on behalf of the consumer. These are the services most directly relevant to demand response and flexibility markets.

Eight control service types

The report categorises control services into eight distinct types:

1. Elprisoptimering (electricity price optimisation) — scheduling consumption for low-price periods
2. Effektoptimeringstjänst (peak power optimisation) — controlling to stay within power thresholds and reduce effekttariff charges
3. Marknadsbaserad lastbalansering (market-based load balancing) — providing flexibility to balancing or flexibility markets
4. Lokal flexibilitet (local flexibility) — providing flexibility to DSO local markets (e.g., Effekthandel Väst, sthlmflex)
5. Laddningstjänst för EV (EV charging service) — smart charging optimised for price and/or grid signals
6. Energidelning (energy sharing) — matching local generation with consumption within a community
7. Nätövervakningstjänst (grid monitoring service) — DSO-facing, not consumer-facing; monitoring grid state via consumer assets
8. Aggregeringstjänst med batterilager (aggregation with battery storage) — using residential batteries in aggregated dispatch

Seven automation signal types

For control services to activate automatically, they must receive a signal. The report identifies seven signal types in use or development:

1. Elpris — spot price or tariff price signal
2. Effektavgift (power charge) — grid peak charge signal
3. Lokalt flexibilitetssignal — DSO local flexibility market signal
4. Balanssignal — TSO balancing market signal
5. Solproduktionssignal — local solar generation signal for self-consumption optimisation
6. Manuell signal — consumer-initiated trigger
7. Kombinerade signaler — combinations of the above

Three consumer user groups

The report defines three consumer segments for smart energy services, useful for market communication:

The effekttariff gap

A notable structural finding: effekttariff (grid power charge, based on peak power demand in a period) is the signal that would most directly benefit from control services, because avoiding peak power events saves directly on the grid tariff bill. However, the report finds that control service integration with effekttariff signals is underdeveloped. Services exist but penetration is low and interoperability with DSO tariff calculation systems is poor. The gap reflects the fragmented DSO landscape: each DSO designs its own effekttariff differently, making standardised control integration difficult. This is a design challenge that only a central data infrastructure (like the DHV being proposed by Ei and Svk) could systematically resolve.

V2G as near-future

Vehicle-to-grid (V2G) is identified as a near-term growth area. The report notes that V2G technology is not yet widely deployed in Sweden but that the service architecture for V2G — bidirectional EV charging integrated with market or grid signals — fits naturally into the control service typology. Two-way V2G is expected to emerge as a service type by mid-decade.

UX analysis: Elpriskollen

Elpriskollen is Ei’s national electricity price comparison tool, managed by Energimyndigheten. The report was tasked with evaluating how styr-och-informationstjänster could be presented there.

Two concepts evaluated

Concept A (Step-by-step filtering): Users follow a guided flow — what devices/DERs do you have? → what do you want (price optimisation, market participation, grid signal)? → filtered results. Designed for the “nyfikne” and “nästa steg” segments. Emphasises clarity over comprehensiveness.

Concept B (Full catalogue display): All services displayed with filter options. More comprehensive but cognitively demanding; risks overwhelming consumers unfamiliar with the market.

Recommendation

The report recommends Concept A (step-by-step filtering) as the better design for Elpriskollen. Reasons: most consumers lack prior knowledge of the service landscape; the structured flow reduces decision paralysis; it guides users towards relevant services rather than confronting them with 44 undifferentiated options.

Seven conditions for smart energy use

The report frames smart electricity use as requiring seven conditions to be met simultaneously. All seven must be in place for a consumer to actively participate:

1. Tillgång till mätdata (access to metering data) — real-time or near-real-time data from the smart meter
2. Tydliga prisincentiv (clear price incentives) — hourly pricing or tariff structure that rewards flexibility
3. Teknik för styrning (control technology) — smart devices or aggregation hardware
4. Informationstjänst (information service) — visibility into consumption and costs
5. Styrtjänst (control service) — an actor or app that actually implements control
6. Avtal och regler (contracts and rules) — clear commercial agreements for service delivery
7. Tillit (trust) — consumer trust in the service provider and in automation

The framework is analytical rather than prescriptive — it diagnoses which condition is the binding constraint for a given segment. For “Den nyfikne”, conditions 3–5 are typically missing. For “Optimeraren”, condition 6 (fragmented contracts, no standard agreements) is often the binding constraint.

Relation to existing wiki content

• Demand Response: Confirms the information/control service distinction; maps supply-side market landscape from the provider perspective; effekttariff gap as barrier
• Flexibility Market: 172-actor market map; control services = flexibility service provider (FSP) layer; three user groups inform consumer segmentation
• Elmarknadshubb: effekttariff gap and DSO fragmentation directly motivate the DHV proposal; standardised tariff signals require central data infrastructure
• Aggregation: Control services 3 and 4 (market-based load balancing, local flexibility) are aggregation services; service type 8 (battery aggregation) directly relevant
• Energy Communities: Energy sharing (service type 6) is the control-service form of energy community participation
• Vehicle-to-Grid: EV charging (service type 5) and V2G (near-future) addressed directly

Data gaps

• Market penetration data for each of the 8 control service types — the report maps service existence but not adoption rates (number of customers enrolled per service)
• Whether Energimyndigheten adopted Concept A for Elpriskollen in practice — the report recommends it but the outcome is unknown
• How the actor count (172) has changed since November 2023 — the market is likely larger by now