Dynamic electricity tariffs are becoming a cornerstone of the energy transition across Europe. As electricity systems integrate growing shares of renewable generation, wholesale prices fluctuate more frequently, making time-based pricing increasingly valuable for both utilities and consumers. At the same time, customers are recognising the benefits of dynamic tariffs, which can offer lower electricity costs by reducing the risk premiums typically built into fixed-price contracts.
Yet many utilities face the same challenge: most residential customers still do not have smart meters to feed 15-minute interval data into the billing system. In Germany, for almost 95%, a dynamic tariff built on real interval data simply isn't available yet. Without interval meter data, many suppliers assume they must postpone dynamic tariff launches until smart meter penetration increases.
SLP-based dynamic contracts close this gap.
Using Standard Load Profiles (SLP) combined with a modern billing engine, utilities can already introduce dynamic electricity contracts today, gain valuable operational experience, and prepare both their systems and customers for the transition to a fully digital energy landscape.
Across Europe, regulators are pushing utilities towards dynamic electricity pricing. In Germany, §41a EnWG requires electricity suppliers to offer dynamic tariffs to customers with smart meters. Austria's Renewable Expansion Act (EAG) and Switzerland's evolving flexibility framework are moving in a similar direction, encouraging suppliers to develop more flexible, market-oriented retail products.
The challenge is that regulation is advancing faster than the underlying infrastructure.
In Germany in particular, the rollout of intelligent metering systems (iMSys) has consistently lagged behind legislative ambitions. While utilities are expected to make dynamic tariffs broadly available, the vast majority of residential customers still cannot be billed based on real interval consumption data.
This creates a structural dilemma.
Utilities can postpone launching dynamic tariffs until smart meter deployment catches up, limiting their ability to innovate and to prepare their customers for what’s coming. They can restrict their offering to the relatively small share of customers who already have smart meters, dramatically reducing market reach. Or they can find a way to launch dynamic products without relying on interval meter data, and thereby begin to share the benefits with customers, increase retention, and learn how to service these products.
This is where SLP-based dynamic tariffs come in.
Calling them a "workaround" doesn't quite do them justice. For many forward-looking utilities, SLP-based dynamic contracts have become a deliberate first step in a broader product strategy – allowing them to enter the dynamic tariff market today while building the capabilities needed for tomorrow's flexible energy ecosystem.
The business case for getting started is compelling. Dynamic tariffs help utilities meet regulatory requirements, differentiate themselves in increasingly competitive retail markets, encourage electricity consumption when renewable generation is abundant, and prepare customers for future flexibility services such as automated EV charging, home energy management, and demand response.
The only real obstacle is infrastructure.
Although smart meter deployment continues to accelerate, most utilities still serve portfolios dominated by conventional meters. Waiting for full smart meter penetration could postpone product innovation by several years.
An SLP-based approach removes this bottleneck. Instead of waiting for infrastructure to catch up, utilities can launch dynamic tariffs today, gain operational experience, optimise billing processes, educate customers, and establish a seamless migration path towards smart meter-based billing as rollout progresses.
So how can a utility offer a genuinely dynamic tariff without smart meter data? The answer lies in combining synthetic load profiles with a billing engine capable of calculating both time-series-based profiles and electricity prices.
An SLP-based dynamic tariff combines dynamic wholesale electricity prices with a customer's estimated consumption profile rather than measured quarter-hour smart meter data.
Instead of calculating costs from actual interval measurements, the billing engine applies an estimate of consumption per month or year and distributes that to individual days and quarter hours using a standardized synthetic load profile. This estimated consumption is then matched with hourly or quarter-hourly market prices – typically based on EPEX Spot – to calculate the customer's energy costs. So we get a quarter hour energy value multiplied with a quarter hour price. In that sense, the billing engine works very similarly to when billing a dynamic tariff. The main difference is that the energy volumes are estimated at first.
This is the world that the customer without a smart meter lives in: they get billed on estimates, most often on a monthly basis, and provide, frequently or infrequently (sometimes only once a year) meter readings. The difference between periodic meter readings then delivers a real energy volume in a certain time interval. And this can again be converted into “real” energy volumes per quarter hour. So as soon as real meter readings arrive from the (non-smart) meter, the previously estimated quarter hour energy values are replaced by the “real” (sort of interpolated).
The result is a tariff that reflects wholesale market dynamics while remaining accessible to customers who have not yet received a smart meter.
An SLP-based dynamic tariff allows utilities to:
The result: customers without a smart meter can be billed on a dynamic tariff today, using an estimated consumption pattern, with the final invoice corrected later once real meter readings become available.
This matters because it decouples two things that are usually bundled together in people's thinking: dynamic pricing and interval metering. You don't need one to have the other – at least not for billing purposes.
For many utilities, SLP-based dynamic contracts are not simply a workaround – they are a strategic market entry point.
Utilities can launch new products immediately without depending on smart meter rollout schedules. This significantly reduces the time between product design and commercial launch.
Dynamic tariffs introduce new operational processes, customer communication, pricing strategies, and billing requirements. Launching first with SLP customers allows utilities to gain experience before managing millions of interval data points.
Instead of waiting years for infrastructure deployment, suppliers can already acquire customers interested in innovative energy products. This creates stronger customer loyalty while building a future flexibility portfolio.
When customers are already on a product that depends on the EPEX Spot price, the transition to a full dynamic tariff where also the consumption is measured on every interval is much easier to handle than when they are switching from a fixed tariff. Moreover, exnaton’s systems are specifically geared to help with this transition regarding market communication and billing processes.
Launching an SLP-based tariff is rarely the final objective. Instead, it represents the first stage in a broader digital transformation journey.
exnaton frames this progression as five stages, moving from zero smart meter dependency toward full flexibility orchestration:
Launching an SLP-based dynamic tariff requires more than simply replacing smart meter data with a synthetic load profile. The billing engine must accurately combine market prices, estimated consumption, and future smart meter migration into a single, automated process.
Here's how it works.
The billing process starts with the tariff calculation itself. Rather than relying on a fixed energy price, the billing engine imports wholesale electricity prices – typically from EPEX Spot – and combines them with supplier-specific pricing logic.
Utilities can configure pricing formulas using:
By importing these components through standard interfaces instead of hardcoding them, the tariff can evolve as market conditions or regulations change.
Since the customer does not yet have an intelligent meter, the billing engine creates a synthetic quarter-hourly consumption profile based on the customer's estimated annual consumption and the applicable Standard Load Profile (SLP).
This estimated time series is then matched against the corresponding market prices for every quarter-hour (or hour), allowing the system to calculate the customer's energy costs as if interval data were available.
The result is a transparent monthly invoice that reflects dynamic wholesale prices, even without a smart meter.
When actual meter readings become available – for example during the annual meter reading cycle – the total billed consumption is automatically reconciled with the customer's real annual usage, ensuring accurate settlement over the full billing period.
Perhaps the most important capability is what happens once the customer finally receives an intelligent metering system (iMSys).
A scalable billing engine should switch automatically from synthetic consumption profiles to real interval meter data without requiring a new tariff, contract, or manual migration.
At the same time, it must correctly settle the period before the meter installation using SLP-based billing and continue billing all future consumption using actual interval measurements.
Without this automated transition, utilities would face a manual and error-prone migration process for every customer moving to smart meter billing – an approach that quickly becomes unsustainable as rollout accelerates.
When these capabilities are combined, utilities no longer need separate billing processes for conventional and smart-meter customers.
Instead, a single billing engine supports the entire evolution – from SLP-based dynamic tariffs today to fully interval-based billing tomorrow – allowing utilities to launch innovative products immediately while remaining ready for the next phase of the energy transition.
exnaton's platform is built to run SLP-based and smart-meter-based dynamic tariffs side by side, using the same tariff and billing infrastructure. Tariff components – fixed price, index-based rate, time-of-use rate, formula-based dynamic rate – can be configured and toggled per customer segment, and the transition from SLP to interval billing happens automatically as smart meters are installed, without a system migration.
For a utility, this means the SLP-based dynamic tariff isn't a separate product to sunset later – it's the same product, running on the same rails, that simply gets more precise as metering infrastructure catches up. That's consistent with how exnaton frames the broader opportunity: dynamic tariffs shouldn't wait for perfect data. They should launch with the data available today and improve as better data arrives.
At exnaton, we developed our billing platform to help utilities introduce modern energy products without replacing their existing IT landscape.
Our SLP solution enables suppliers to launch dynamic tariffs today while preparing for tomorrow's smart energy ecosystem.
Utilities can configure dynamic tariff formulas based on:
The pricing logic can be adapted without custom software development.
The platform automatically:
This enables accurate and scalable billing even before smart meter deployment.
One of the biggest advantages of exnaton's approach is that customers do not need to change contracts once a smart meter is installed. This works whenever certain product clauses are observed, which exnaton is happy to consult on.
On a technical level, the billing engine simply replaces the synthetic load profile with real interval meter data. The customer experience remains unchanged while billing accuracy increases automatically.
This creates a smooth migration path as smart meter rollout progresses.
Utilities do not need to replace their ERP or customer information systems.
The exnaton platform integrates with existing environments, including SAP and powercloud landscapes, allowing suppliers to modernize their energy products without disrupting established business processes.
SLP-based dynamic billing is already helping energy suppliers bring dynamic tariffs to a broader customer base instead of limiting them to households with smart meters.
One example is Elli, Volkswagen Group’s energy brand, which launched Volkswagen Naturstrom Flex as part of a broader energy ecosystem for customers with flexible or high-consumption assets such as electric vehicles, wallboxes, and rooftop PV systems.
Elli began the project at the end of 2023 and brought the first customers live on 1 April 2024, well ahead of the German market deadline for dynamic tariff offerings. The objective was not simply to meet a regulatory requirement. Elli wanted to create a product that could serve customers with different metering setups while making dynamic electricity pricing transparent and easy to understand.
The result was one customer-facing tariff with two billing models in the background. Customers with a smart meter can be settled using actual 15-minute consumption data, allowing them to benefit directly from shifting demand into lower-priced periods. Customers without a smart meter are billed using a Standard Load Profile and a monthly volume-weighted average price.
The tariff is based on EPEX Spot day-ahead prices, includes certified green electricity, and starts with a fixed-price first month to ease customers into the dynamic model. A one-month minimum contract term also gives customers greater flexibility.
exnaton supported Elli where dynamic tariff products become operationally complex: the billing engine and billing logic, settlement processes, and customer-facing visualizations. These capabilities allow customers to view current and day-ahead prices, previous consumption curves, energy use alongside costs, and their weighted average price across daily, weekly, monthly, and annual views.
The implementation was delivered together with Work Digital, which handled the integration layer and customer portal integration, and Convotis, which was responsible for output management, customer documents, and dispatch. Clear ownership across the partner ecosystem helped the project move quickly while keeping the customer journey, billing presentation, and technical implementation closely aligned.
A central lesson from the project was that a dynamic tariff does not need every possible feature on day one. Elli prioritized the functionality required for a reliable launch, involved legal and other cross-functional stakeholders early, and treated less critical elements as subsequent development stages.
The case illustrates the broader value of an SLP-based approach: utilities can launch a single dynamic product across customers with and without smart meters, gain practical experience early, and transition customers to interval-based settlement as the metering infrastructure becomes available.
Smart meters remain the long-term destination for dynamic energy services.
But they do not have to be the starting point.
SLP-based dynamic tariffs enable utilities to innovate today while building the operational capabilities needed for tomorrow's energy markets.
Instead of postponing product development until infrastructure catches up, suppliers can already:
For utilities looking to accelerate their digital transformation, SLP-based dynamic contracts provide a practical, low-risk first step.
As smart meter rollout accelerates, the share of customers billed on real interval data will grow – and utilities that started with SLP-based dynamic tariffs will already have the billing infrastructure, tariff logic, and customer base in place to make that transition without disruption. The utilities that wait for 100% smart meter coverage before launching anything will simply have waited longer to start learning.
If you're evaluating how to launch a dynamic tariff without waiting on smart meter rollout, we're happy to walk through how the model works for your customer base – contact us now.
SLP stands for Standardlastprofil (standard load profile) – a standardized, statistically modeled consumption curve used to estimate electricity use for customers without an interval meter.
Yes. An SLP-based dynamic tariff bills the customer using their estimated SLP consumption curve multiplied against a variable price such as the EPEX Spot day-ahead price, rather than requiring real interval meter data.
The billing engine switches the customer to interval-based dynamic tariff billing going forward, while the period before the smart meter installation continues to be settled on an SLP basis until the metering and balancing changeover takes effect.
Regulation such as Germany's §41a EnWG requires dynamic tariffs to be offered now, while smart meter penetration in many markets remains in the single digits. SLP-based billing lets utilities comply and compete today rather than waiting years for infrastructure to catch up.
