Ei R2023-04 Konsumenter och Efterfrågeflexibilitet (2023)

Ei’s report Konsumenter och efterfrågeflexibilitet — en nulägesbeskrivning och åtgärdsförslag för ökad flexibilitet (Ei R2023:04), the answer to deluppdrag 2 of the government’s August 2022 assignment to promote a more flexible electricity system. It is a household-focused report: current state, barriers and 13 proposed measures (a–m). Its measure d is an earlier statement of intent behind Ei’s later work on machine-readable network tariffs (Source - Ei Offentliggörande av Elnätsavgifter (2026)).

The assignment

• In August 2022 Ei, Svenska kraftnät, Energimyndigheten and Swedac were told to propose measures for a more flexible energy system, in five sub-assignments. Deluppdrag 2 (this report) tasks Ei to promote flexibility, including implicit flexibility, in the end-customer market, covering “customer information, market incentives, innovation, tariff design, data sharing and other instruments”; the first four sub-reports were due on 6 April 2023.
• Scope: households only (consumers as defined in ellagen); firms with household-like use benefit from several measures.
• Definitions used: efterfrågeflexibilitet is a voluntary change in electricity demanded from the grid in response to some incentive; implicit (price-based, e.g. time-differentiated retail prices or network tariffs) versus explicit (compensated), a distinction the report does not use in its text because it matters little to a consumer.

Main findings (as stated in the summary)

Ei judges the volume of flexibility from households to be significant. The most important barriers it identifies include a lack of information about incentives and options for all customer segments, and a lack of services for controlling electricity use and for information (styrtjänster, informationstjänster). Households find it hard to judge the consequences of choices such as moving to an hourly-price contract.

Information and information services (chapter 3.3, read in full)

• Demand: an EY survey (about 2,000 households) found 88% wanting new digital functions such as analysing their own consumption; in Svenskt kvalitetsindex’s 2022 survey, a good digital platform or app to follow use and price was the most frequent wish (23%) from a retailer, apart from price.
• Grid companies’ supply (Ei’s December 2022 survey, 31 grid companies answering this question, Figure 21): all offer hourly consumption information; 42% also via a mobile app; 33% have automated processes for sharing hourly data with other parties on the customer’s request; only 12% offer information on the customer’s grid cost per hour.
• Time-differentiated tariffs: of the six grid companies that already had one, five show the billing peak(s) on the invoice, none shows how well the customer’s use follows the tariff, and one has automated real-time data sharing. An AFRY study for Ei (2022) found most grid companies do little customer communication and have no way to evaluate it.
• Uncertainty: IVL’s decision experiment (2,679 households without hourly-price contracts) found that introducing uncertainty about the savings cut households’ willingness to switch and invest by about a third. Ei’s own worked example: a detached house in SE4 using 23,600 kWh could have saved 3,675 SEK between August 2021 and July 2022 by moving to an hourly contract and steering heating; a personal estimate needs hourly use, home variables and the customer’s network tariff, which Ei does not have access to.

Measure d: make network-tariff information digitally available (chapter 4.1.4, read in full)

This is the passage that connects to the later disclosure work.

• Ei judges that collected, current digital information on network tariffs is needed to promote control and information services that take the customer’s tariff into account.
• The problem it describes: such services are generally missing; as grid companies introduce time-differentiated tariffs they become more important, since customers who cannot understand and respond to the tariff raise costs for themselves, the grid companies and, in the end, all users. Information on the roughly 170 grid companies’ tariffs is hard to access: Ei has long collected tariff statistics and will collect more on time-differentiated tariffs from 2023 under EIFS 2022:5, but that data is neither updated as fast as tariffs change nor in a format that can be used as a basis for services. A market actor must therefore build its own database by hand from the written information on about 170 websites, which Ei calls a very extensive task limiting reliable solutions.
• What Ei intends: to start work to improve and develop the annual reporting of network tariffs so that it better matches how tariffs are to be designed under EIFS 2022:1, with the option of a dialogue with grid companies and with companies building control and information services, to find the simplest possible solution for them. As an example, Ei notes that the Norwegian energy sector chose to develop an open API (DIGIN, 2023) for direct control against current network tariffs, which could be a solution in Sweden too.
• In summary table 5 the measure is worded: before a possible review of the rules governing grid companies’ reporting of tariff information, Ei intends to open a dialogue with grid companies and with service developers.

The other measures (a–m)

Relevance to wiki topics

• Source - Ei Offentliggörande av Elnätsavgifter (2026) — Ei’s 2026 start on rewriting the tariff-disclosure rules; measure d is its earlier stated intention (see the caveat there on what the news item itself cites)
• Swedish DSO Tariff Reform — Three Parallel Tracks (2025–2027) — the tariff context (EIFS 2022:1 is the regulation this report presupposes; it was repealed in June 2026)
• Source - Ei Effektavgifter Uppdrag (2026) — the March 2026 assignment that repeals EIFS 2022:1
• Source - AFRY Styr och Informationstjänster Konsumenter (2023) — a related consultant study for Ei on control and information services
• Source - Ei Flexläget 2026 (PM2026-02) — Ei’s later household flexibility status report, which cites this report

Reading with care

• What was read. The preface, summary, chapter 1 (assignment, definitions, rules), section 3.3 (information) and chapter 4 (all measures and the summary tables) were read in full; chapters 2 and 3.1, 3.2 and 3.4 (the household change process, pricing, incentives, control solutions and energy sharing) were read only through headings and targeted searches, so findings from those chapters are not summarised here.
• The report is from early 2023. Several of its premises have changed since (EIFS 2022:1 repealed in June 2026; Elpriskollen and the metering rules have developed), and measures phrased as Ei’s intentions are not decisions.
• The Norwegian API example is cited to DIGIN (2023) and is not described further in the report.