An Equilibrium Analysis of Time-Varying and Flat Electricity Rates
Bibliographic record
Abstract
Many electricity providers are offering their customers an array of tariff options intended to discourage electricity consumption at specific times of the day. The problem facing a customer is whether to switch from their existing tariff to a new tariff. The aim of this paper is twofold: first, to develop two analytical methods that help residential customers evaluate when switching from a flat-rate tariff to time-varying pricing options, specifically the Time-of-Use (TOU) tariff and an event-based tariff, becomes economically beneficial, and second, to review customers’ experiences with the tariffs. The methods identify the specific consumption distributions at which the TOU or event-based tariffs are in energy- and cost-equilibrium with the domestic service tariff for residential customers. For the TOU structure, the analysis shows that customers must maintain a non-winter-to-winter-peak consumption ratio exceeding 3.0756 for cost neutrality, a condition rarely met by households with winter-dominant loads. In contrast, event-based structures require only minimal behavioral adjustments to achieve savings, with as little as 1.75% of annual consumption needing to be avoided during event periods to match domestic-service costs. Additional savings are observed with partial or full load shifting away from peak events. The findings highlight that while TOU may benefit households with high summer usage, event-based tariffs present a more practical and economically favorable option for residential customers living in the Canadian province of Nova Scotia. The paper concludes with implications for tariff selection and consumer behavior. This research will be of value to anyone considering designing a time-varying rate or having to choose between an existing flat-rate tariff and a time-varying tariff.
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How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame machine prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. The Gemma side is a direct model label for every work in the frame, read from the title-only record. The Codex side is a classifier learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and calibrated to design-weighted sample rates; fields without enough sample support carry no Codex call. Candidate is the union of the two sides; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels.
Distilled classifier scores by category (both heads)
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.001 | 0.005 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.001 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.000 | 0.001 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.000 | 0.001 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.002 | 0.001 |
| Open science | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Research integrity | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.007 | 0.001 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one source (direct Gemma or distilled Codex), not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".