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Tariff reform has evolved through five waves since the late 1970s.
While 300+ pilots have shown that customers respond to time-varying rates, there is a reluctance among policy makers, regulators, and utilities to move ahead with new tariffs because of strongly-held misperceptions about how they may raise customer bills.

The legislated low-user fixed charge has become a “middle-class subsidy” for electricity and needs to be scrapped or replaced, the country’s political parties agree. Labour Party energy spokesperson Dr Megan Woods says the most vulnerable families in terms of energy poverty in her Wigram electorate office are not small households with solar panels, but “very large families”.“They are probably living in uninsulated rental accommodation and they’re the ones not getting the benefit, so I absolutely don’t think it meets the needs that I think it needs to.”“It can be seen as a middle-class subsidy now.”

The Energiewende is seen as a longer-term “investment” which comes with significant costs. The German government has spent about €500 billion on electricity subsidies to date. But it expects it will have beneficial outcomes out to 2030 in terms of economic development, as well as by creating a decarbonised energy system. Germany’s “integrated” policy seeks to lower emissions across the country’s electricity, industrial and transport sectors. It also seeks to increase energy security by reducing the country’s coal, gas, petroleum and uranium imports.