Dual Price Signals and Demand Flexibility

This thesis aims to examine how well Jämtkraft’s customers understand and respond to dualprice signals, more specifically a grid fee and a retail electricity charge. Demand-side flexibility isoften highlighted as a key solution to meet future challenges in the electricity grid. However, forsuch flexibility to be effective, consumers need to understand how to interpret price signals andhave the ability to act accordingly. This study therefore investigates the extent to whichconsumers comprehend and are able to respond to these signals.The thesis is based on a survey distributed to three customer groups: those who are both gridand retail electricity customers, those who are only grid customers, and those who are onlyretail electricity customers at Jämtkraft. The results show that overall understanding of dualprice signals is limited among consumers. The group with only a grid contract at Jämtkraftperformed the best, likely because they had actively chosen their electricity supplier and weretherefore more engaged. The study also finds that several background factors significantlyinfluence consumers’ ability to interpret and respond to price signals.