Gap Between Legal Framework and Market Reality for Demand-Side Flexibility in CEE
As renewable energy expands across Europe, electricity prices are becoming increasingly volatile. In 2024, all four Visegrad countries experienced a striking rise in hours of negative electricity prices — moments when the grid generates more power than consumers use. Czechia recorded 315 such hours, Slovakia 288, while Poland and Hungary each logged 197. This is not just a market curiosity: it is a signal that the energy system urgently needs consumers to become more flexible.
This is a topic addressed by Demand-Side Flexibility (DSF). In simple terms, DSF enables households and businesses to adjust their electricity usage to times when energy is cheap and plentiful, or to reduce it briefly when the grid is under stress. Think of it like buying airline tickets: travelling at off-peak times is cheaper, and the same logic applies to electricity. Flexible consumers can safe on bill or even be paid for helping to stabilise the grid.
A new report published under the FLEX4CEE project maps the state of DSF across Czechia, Hungary, Poland and Slovakia. The first findings reveal a striking paradox: while all four countries have transposed the EU legislation related to DSF into national law, consumers are still largely unable to use it in practice. The full report is available below for download and here are the most interesting findings:
Rights on paper, barriers in practice
Independent aggregation, the mechanism that allows households and small businesses to pool their flexibility and sell it on energy markets, is legally permitted in all four countries. Yet it is fully functional nowhere. In Czechia, independent aggregation is effectively blocked until the Energy Data Center becomes operational, expected in December 2027. In Hungary, aggregators remain dependent on balance responsible parties, limiting their independence.
The dynamic tariff gap
In most of the countries, there are dynamic retail tariffs that provide financial incentives to people to adjust their consumption, but almost no one uses them. In Czechia, only around 1 % of customers contracted such tariffs. Poland has just 4,836 consumers using dynamic tariffs (under 0.03 % of the total), Slovakia has 2,541 households. Hungary has no dynamic tariff offering at all, partly due to a universal regulated household price of approximately 12 EUR/MWh and a single dominant supplier.
Smart meters: the infrastructure divide
Without a smart meter, households cannot benefit from dynamic pricing or similar products at all. Here, the four countries differ sharply: Poland leads with 48 % of meters installed, Slovakia stands at 19 %, while Czechia has around 10 % and Hungary only 7–8 %.
Poland as the regional frontrunner
Among the four countries, Poland has made the most tangible progress. It has cut the minimum bid size for ancillary services participation from 1 MW to 0.2 MW, opening markets to smaller players. Its capacity market has already contracted 1.3 GW of demand-side response for 2030.