Investigation of Data Exchange Processes for Electricity Supplier Change in German Smart Grid Scenarios

In future smart grid scenarios, a greater involvement and active participation of customers are desirable in order to integrate renewable energy. Based on today’s electricity tariff schemes an evolutionary process could lead to real-time pricing and a significantly higher frequency of supplier changes. If this becomes reality, the business-to-business processes and the corresponding data exchange processes require most likely adjustments. In this paper it is investigated if current data exchange processes for supplier change are suitable for application to shorter cancellation periods and much shorter contract period for final customer’s energy contracts than today in Germany. Market actors and exchange processes are modelled as a multi-agent simulation and three different scenarios of aforementioned future contractual characteristics at the final customers’ site are examined. Main focus is given to the processes at the business-to-business level; final customers only act as triggers by contracting new suppliers.