Electricity retail plan optimization design method for electricity retail company based on Stackelberg game

• Novel dual-layer clustering method identifies four customer types precisely. • Stackelberg game framework optimizes retailer profits and customer satisfaction. • Conditional value at risk assessment reduces spot market financial risks. • Case study shows 21.7% profit increase and 30.7% risk reduction achieved. • Integrated approach outperforms existing fragmented optimization methods. With the accelerating liberalization of electricity retail markets worldwide and increasing emphasis on demand-side management for achieving carbon neutrality goals, electricity retail companies face unprecedented challenges in balancing profitability, risk management, and customer satisfaction. Traditional uniform pricing approaches fail to account for customer heterogeneity and interactive decision-making behaviors, limiting the effectiveness of demand response programs and exposing companies to significant spot market risks. Existing electricity retail plan optimization methods either focus solely on pricing strategies without considering customer behavioral differences or ignore the interactive nature of company-customer decision-making, resulting in suboptimal market outcomes and missed opportunities for efficiency improvements. Given this background, this paper focuses on the optimization design of electricity retail plans for electricity retail companies. An optimization method based on Stackelberg game is proposed accordingly. Case studies on 1654 industrial and commercial customers in eastern China demonstrate that the proposed method achieves substantial improvements in key performance indicators: company profits increased by 21.7% while spot market risks decreased by 30.7%, accompanied by positive customer utility gains (satisfaction of 1.0514). These results demonstrate that well-designed retail plans can simultaneously achieve company profitability, risk mitigation, and customer satisfaction, contributing to efficient electricity market operations. The research provides electricity retail companies with a systematic framework for designing differentiated retail plans that effectively manage market risks while promoting demand-side flexibility, supporting transition toward more competitive and sustainable electricity markets. By incentivizing customers to adjust consumption patterns, the proposed approach contributes to peak load reduction and system efficiency improvements, supporting broader grid modernization and sustainability objectives.