Unlocking Value from Energy Flexibility: Why Utilities Must Rethink Billing

The Flexibility Imperative

The research is unambiguous: Europe’s grid cannot keep adding wires and transformers without cost consequences. The consultancy firm McKinsey & Company estimates that commercial & industrial users in Europe could access up to €8 billion of flexibility value by 2030. Meanwhile, the EU-wide study “Increasing Flexibility in the EU Energy System” notes that demand-side flexibility, storage and generation assets are “major contributors of (sub-)daily and weekly flexibility” and are now essential across member states. In Germany, for example, planners show that without large scale flexibility, “dunkelflaute” (days of low wind and solar output) scenarios would produce monthly supply gaps exceeding 100 TWh.   

Put simply: supply side assets alone won’t solve it. Distributed resources, flexible demand (EVs, heat pumps, industrial loads) and dynamic tariffing are becoming strategic levers. This matters especially in three major European markets:

• Germany, where the legacy industrial grid faces both high tariffs and high demand volatility.

• Italy, where wholesale electricity prices are now among the highest in Europe, pressuring margins and forcing distributors to seek new business models.   

• France, where near-99% clean energy share is reducing wholesale prices, but also compressing utility margins and making monetisation of flexibility more urgent.   

Monetising Flexibility: B2B & B2C

Monetisation of flexibility means turning assets — batteries, EV charging, demand response, thermal storage — into revenue streams. In the B2B domain: heavy industrial users or aggregators sell grid services (balancing, capacity, curtailment) or wholesale arbitrage. For consumers (B2C): time-of-use tariffs, virtual power plants, home storage bundles or vehicle-to-grid (V2G) enable new subscription models. McKinsey calls out two main routes for industrial users: grid service participation and wholesale market flex arbitrage.  

Yet many utilities remain locked in legacy billing systems built around fixed consumption + flat rates. These systems don’t handle hourly price changes, nested tariffs, or micropayments for flexibility. As a result, providers become prisoners of their own IT, unable to mobilise flexibility channels even when physically available.

Country-Level Snapshots

• Germany: With the “Energiewende” in full swing, renewables hit ~46% of electricity mix and grid complexity is rising fast. Flexibility requirements are high, but innovative billing and business models remain relatively immature.  

• Italy: High wholesale prices (e.g., ~€125/MWh in 2025) are squeezing traditional utility margins. Flexibility gives providers a chance to escape the commodity trap.   

• France: Dominated by nuclear + renewables, wholesale prices are among the lowest in Europe (~€73/MWh), significantly lower than Germany (≈ €98/MWh) or Italy (≈ €125/MWh), forcing utilities to shift from volume-based to value-based models. This means that simply selling commodity electricity is no longer a high-margin business; margins are under pressure. Utility business models must move beyond volume and into value, where flexibility (storage, demand response, dynamic tariffs) becomes a new source of revenue.

These regional realities mean that energy providers in Europe must ask themselves three questions:

1. Can existing systems support dynamic, usage-based or time-sensitive tariffs?

2. Are we able to onboard and bill flexibility flows from consumers or assets in real time?

3. Will legacy IT restrict our ability to launch new monetisation models — or become our jailer?

Why Billing Systems Matter

If you can’t invoice for flexibility, you can’t monetise it. That means no V2G subscription, no pool of domestic batteries providing grid support, no micro-payments for demand response. The system becomes a cost centre not a revenue engine.

Modern customer engagement and billing platforms must:

• Handle complex tariffs: time-of-use, peak/off-peak, device-level usage.

• Support micropayments and wallet top-ups for flexibility services.

• Enable rapid offer changes: new business models emerge monthly.

• Deliver self-service digital UX: enable customers to buy flexibility, track credits, join schemes.

Without this foundation, even the best physical flexibility assets remain white elephants.

It’s Not Just Technology — It’s Strategy

In Germany providers are exploring “clean industrial flex contracts” where factories shift loads for grid reward; in Italy utilities bundle EV-charging + home storage + dynamic tariff; in France existing nuclear/renewables fleets need consumer-side flexibility to avoid grid stress. In all cases, billing and engagement systems determine who wins. Providers that still use rigid legacy stacks risk slipping into margin-collapse or becoming infrastructure-only players.

triPica for Utilities

triPica’s subscription & billing platform is built for this new reality: agile, cloud-native, API-first, able to spin up flexibility-aware business models in weeks. It supports utilities and telcos in Europe to go beyond fixed tariffs, monetise flexibility flows, and reinvent their customer journey for the age of abundance. Discover how our customers are already launching innovative offers thanks to triPica.

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