Energiforsk 2026-1197 Konkurrensen om Efterfrågeflexibilitet Simulering (2026)

Energiforsk Report 2026:1197, Konkurrensen om efterfrågeflexibilitet — Delrapport: Simuleringsstudie olika effektavgifter (June 2026) — a delrapport of the project Konkurrensen om kundernas efterfrågeflexibilitet. Authors: Peter Fritz (Fritzfirma), Jakob Helbrink & Bethel Zaya (Merlin & Metis), Magnus Lindén & Emilie Andersson (Sweco). Simulates how four grid demand-charge designs affect customers’ use of flexibility and the knock-on effects for grids, the spot market, and ancillary services.

Key claims

• Framing — competition for the same flexibility: demand flexibility and storage are needed for three things at once — (1) shape demand to match production, (2) free capacity to connect more load to existing grids, (3) reserve/use leftover flexibility for real-time balancing. New markets and policy instruments compete for the same resources; analysing one application at a time risks missing the interactions. (The signal-collision thesis.)
• Method: an optimisation model maximising customer value (lower grid cost + spot arbitrage + ancillary-service revenue to Svk). Data from a lokalnät with ~20,000 uttagspunkter (quarter-hour, full-year 2025); 200 households randomly selected (15–20,000 kWh/yr, typical electrically-heated villas), each given a 7 kW / 7 kWh battery; perfect foresight. Four tariffs: Standardtariff, tariff 2, tariff 3, and the UniFlex tariff — the last a dynamic tariff where the power price is set continuously from the grid’s actual load rather than fixed annually in advance. Real 2025 spot and ancillary prices.
• Key conclusions:
  • Effektavgifter can strongly change customer behaviour but give limited benefit to the grid — little impact on the grid’s dimensioning need once sammanlagring (coincidence) effects across customers are accounted for.
  • Effektavgifter can reduce customers’ economic incentive to act on the spot market (a tariff↔market signal collision).
  • Tariffs can create new peaks (synchronised response).
  • Verdict: economic incentives will be needed, but should be more precise in both time and space; the network tariff cannot solve everything and must be complemented by other measures to use flexibility efficiently.
• Quantified results (read in the full report, June 2026 sections 4 and 5): individual customers cut their billing-basis peak by about 35 % on average, but because customers’ peaks fall in different hours the aggregate for the 200 customers fell only 6-10 %, and effects higher in the grid were small even under the dynamic UniFlex tariff, partly because a 7 kW / 7 kWh battery cannot hold down demand through long cold spells that dimension local grids. Average value per customer in 2025 was about SEK 11,300-11,800 a year, over 90 % from ancillary services (about 11,000), about 800 from lower network charges (about 300 under UniFlex, though a bigger percentage cut) and only about 50 from spot; without ancillary-service revenue the battery cut spot costs by about SEK 1,400 and the network charge by only about 50 more. The four tariffs gave similar economic results but very different physical flows. The authors name the main efficiency case for effektavgifter as the future risk of many EV chargers starting at once on low prices, which the simulation did not test. Assumptions: perfect foresight, one 7 kW / 7 kWh battery per customer, 2025 prices.
• Policy context: when the study began, Ei’s EIFS 2022:1 mandated effektavgifter for all customers by Jan 2027; after broad spring-2026 criticism on begriplighet (comprehensibility) and acceptans/skälighet (fairness), the decision was withdrawn and Ei will return with a new proposal. The original motive — that demand charges promote effektivt nätutnyttjande and enable connecting new customers — is the efficiency question this report scrutinises.

Relevance to wiki

• The Signal Stack — Price Signal Collisions at the Customer DER — direct simulation evidence (effektavgift suppresses spot response; competition for the same DER).
• Demand Response — effekttariffer section: strong behaviour change, limited grid benefit, new-peaks risk.
• Swedish DSO Tariff Reform — Three Parallel Tracks (2025–2027) — Track 2: empirical evidence base for the new effektavgift model; “precise in time and space.”
• Ei — effektavgift redesign. Related: Grid Capacity Utilization (effektivt nätutnyttjande motive).
• Companion: Source - Energiforsk 2026-1193 Unison Prissignal Timeffektavgift (2026).