Electricity: how to manage your consumption and reduce your bills

Electricity: in the first four months of 2026, shifting electricity consumption from the most expensive hours to the midday hours would have made it possible to reduce costs by between 5 per cent and almost 69 per cent, with a price reduction of up to 59 euros per MWh. An aggregate reduction in demand of 2–5 GW – that is, around 5–10 per cent of Italia’s load – could potentially reduce the PUN (the wholesale price) by 30–50 euros per MWh during the hours in question, equivalent to a reduction of around 10–30 per cent.

This is the impact of demand flexibility on wholesale electricity markets, according to estimates by Flexit, a newly formed Italian association and subsidiary of the European SmartEn group, which brings together companies in this sector: retailers, aggregators and technology manufacturers, such as Enel, Octopus Energy, Energy Pool, Ariston and NTT Data.

“There is an urgent need to harness this potential, particularly in the current climate where we are seeking rapid solutions to reduce energy bills for households and businesses,” explains Michael Villa, chairman of Flexit and managing director of SmartEn. Today, the price of electricity (Gme Pun Index) reached 224 euros per MWh, a level not seen since December 2022.

But what exactly is demand-side flexibility (DSF)? The ability of consumers to take action in response to external signals and to adjust their energy production and consumption dynamically over time, either individually or with the support of market operators (retailers and aggregators).

These ‘flexumers’, as they are known (following on from ‘prosumers’ – producers and consumers of electricity who have installed solar panels on their roofs), can indeed reduce the cost of their electricity bills by taking advantage of daily price fluctuations (through dynamic electricity tariffs). But above all: if they join forces with others, shifting large volumes of demand and smoothing out consumption peaks, they can lead to an overall reduction in the wholesale price, driven by more cost-effective technologies. They also reduce the risk of curtailment – that is, the curtailment of renewable energy generation at times when there is insufficient demand (which is set to rise in 2025, but remains low in Italia: 640 GWh of wind power out of 21 TWh generated and 162 GWh of solar power out of 44 TWh were curtailed). They should also help the system manage load peaks.