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Dynamic tariffs and SmartGridready: who does what

8 min read

You often read “dynamic tariffs” and “SmartGridready” in the same sentence, as if they were a single new development. There are three: the price you pay, the price you are paid, and the language in which these prices reach your appliances. Here is who decides what, from when, and what casasmooth already does with it.

Swiss house with solar panels, a heat pump and a charging car, connected to the neighbourhood power grid

Dynamic tariffs and SmartGridready: three topics, one home

You often read “dynamic tariffs” and “SmartGridready” in the same sentence, as if they were a single new development. There are three: the price you pay, the price you are paid, and the language in which these prices reach your appliances. Here is who decides what, from when, and what casasmooth already does with it.

Three topics meet as soon as electricity and smart homes come up. They are related, but they depend neither on the same decision-makers nor on the same timetable, and they do not affect you in the same way.

  • The price you pay. This is the purchase tariff, for the electricity you draw from the grid. It can become dynamic, meaning it varies during the day: since 2026, this is possible for the “grid use” part of your bill. Your grid operator decides. Nobody forces it on you.
  • The price you are paid. This is the feed-in remuneration, for the electricity your solar roof feeds into the grid. From 2027, it will follow the market price by default, with a guaranteed minimum. Here the Confederation sets the rule, and it applies by default, unless you have a specific agreement with your grid operator, and subject to a few exceptions described below.
  • SmartGridready. It is neither a tariff nor a law. It is an association and a standard: a common language so that these prices, and, in future, requests from the grid, reach the system that controls your appliances, in a form it can read. Without it, every grid operator would speak its own dialect.

The first two are prices: one leaves your pocket, the other comes in. The third is a pipe. They meet in your home, because choosing the right moment to heat water, charge the car or run the heat pump means knowing both prices, and receiving them without copying them by hand. Let us take them one at a time.

1. What you pay: the purchase tariff can become dynamic

Since the 2026 tariff year, your grid operator, the company that runs the distribution grid in your region, can make the “grid use” part of your bill dynamic. Instead of a fixed price, or a simple day-night double tariff, this part then follows the load expected on the grid the next day. According to SmartGridready, a dynamic tariff is usually announced the day before, changes every fifteen minutes or every hour depending on the grid operator, and sometimes also covers the price of the energy itself. The grid operator can even make this dynamic tariff its standard tariff, on one condition: it must also offer you a tariff without a dynamic part.

So it is not an obligation, but a possibility that is spreading. A few grid operators already offer it, as an option or as a pilot, and according to SmartGridready their number keeps growing. To know where you stand, only one source is authoritative: your grid operator.

What such a tariff rewards is shifting: a car that charges at noon rather than at 6 pm, a water heater that heats when the price is low, a heat pump that waits an hour. By hand, nobody keeps up this rhythm for long.

2. What you are paid: feed-in remuneration follows the market from 2027

Here the timetable is not your grid operator's, but the Federal Council's. From 1 January 2027, unless you have agreed otherwise with your grid operator, the electricity you feed in is paid at the market price at the time of feed-in. This reference price is set the day before for the next day, on the Swiss market. The reason is stated clearly: with the strong growth of solar power, sunny days more and more often end in electricity surpluses, and hours with negative prices are becoming more frequent. The new rule is meant to encourage feeding in less at those times, and using or storing that electricity yourself instead.

Two safeguards:

  • a guaranteed minimum: 6 centimes per kWh for a solar installation under 30 kW, which covers most homes. If the reference price for the quarter falls below it, the grid operator pays the difference every quarter. Note: this reference price is an average calculated for all Swiss solar power, not for your roof. A quarter of an hour at a negative price can therefore indeed reduce your remuneration, which is why it pays to use or store your electricity at those times;
  • a transition for existing installations without a smart meter: the old rule still applies, until 31 December 2027 at the latest. And for certain small installations without a smart meter, the grid operator can provide for an annual flat rate.

We described this change in detail in an earlier article: The feed-in tariff for electricity will become dynamic from 2027.

Note the difference from point 1: the dynamic purchase tariff is a choice, feed-in at market price becomes the rule. And the two do not necessarily move together: your grid operator may well pay you the market price for feed-in while billing your purchases at a fixed price.

3. SmartGridready: neither a tariff nor a law, a common language

SmartGridready is an independent, non-profit and technology-neutral association. It brings together around 60 members and partners from the electricity sector, and SwissEnergy is an important financial partner. It sets no prices and passes no laws. Its idea fits in one sentence: simple, standardised communication between products, buildings and the distribution grid.

Why is this needed? Because a price that changes every fifteen minutes is useless if it stays on a web page. For your home to benefit, the system that controls your appliances must receive it in a common format, whatever the grid operator. This is exactly where the three topics meet.

In practice, the association works on four fronts:

  • A map of dynamic tariffs. It gathers the dynamic tariffs that grid operators report to it, with what is needed to use them. SmartGridready checks that they follow the rules of the Swiss electricity sector and publishes them in a form that software can read.
  • Common data sheets. For each use case, a data sheet sets out which information is exchanged. These data sheets are public.
  • A declaration for appliances. A declared appliance, whether a heat pump, a solar installation, a charging station or a battery, can be integrated simply and reliably into the home's energy management.
  • Labels for buildings and for the software that manages energy. A labelled building controls its large appliances, its production and its battery from a single place, without exceeding the power planned for its grid connection. For software, the declaration is under way.

A clarification that avoids a lot of confusion: “SG Ready” is not SmartGridready. SG Ready is a label of the German heat pump association, the BWP. It carries neither prices nor measurements: through two contacts, the heat pump receives a simple instruction. In its first version, there are four operating modes: blocked, normal, switch-on recommended, switch-on forced. The most recent version keeps only three, and the first one limits the heat pump's power instead of blocking it. A recommended switch-on remains a recommendation: the heat pump may not follow it, notably for reasons of operational safety. The signal goes in one direction only, from the grid or the energy manager to the heat pump. SmartGridready is the Swiss standard described here: it works in both directions, it carries prices, power values and states, and its heat pump data sheets incidentally include the SG Ready modes. So the two coexist: an SG Ready heat pump remains controllable in a SmartGridready home.

casasmooth, a member of the association

casasmooth by teleia sarl is a member of the SmartGridready association. Membership is not a certification: our implementation of the standard is not yet certified.

Where the three meet: in your home

Why is all this happening at the same time? SmartGridready explains it this way: there are more and more solar panels on roofs, cars and heating are switching to electricity, and the lines in the neighbourhood reach their limit more often. Instead of only expanding the grids, the flexibility of buildings can be used.

You already have this flexibility: a water heater, a heat pump, a charging station, sometimes a battery. The dynamic purchase tariff rewards it on one side, feed-in at market price rewards it on the other, and SmartGridready makes sure that both prices reach the system that controls your appliances, in a common form. One question remains: who decides, every quarter of an hour, what runs and what waits?

What casasmooth already does in your home

casasmooth's energy management answers this question. More details on our Energy page.

It reads both prices

When your grid operator publishes its tariff in SmartGridready's common form, the box reads it directly, once connected: the price of what you buy and the remuneration for what you feed in. It combines these two prices with the 48-hour solar production forecast. Heating water with the midday sun rather than feeding in at a zero price, charging the car at the cheapest hour: the decision takes both sides of the meter into account.

It plans around your needs

You say what matters: the water heater must run every day, the water never drops below the temperature you chose. The box is not allowed to break these rules. With the freedom that remains, it picks the cheapest hours. And if you start a car charging session with a target, it charges right away, without waiting. The next action is announced in plain language, with its time and the expected tariff.

It keeps power under control

On a low-tariff night, the heat pump, the water heater and the charging station could all start at the same time. The box knows the maximum power set for your home and makes the least urgent appliances wait.

It also talks to older appliances

When your heat pump carries the SG Ready label mentioned above, casasmooth uses it: it recommends running when energy is cheap or solar, and holds it back when the price or the grid requires it. A controlled switch, a thermostat or a water heater with no label at all receives the same logic and becomes part of the same plan, without being replaced.

Your action comes first

If you switch an appliance on by hand, the box lets it run for at least an hour, and as long as it is working, up to 12 hours. If you switch it off, it does not switch it back on for an hour. Only one thing comes before your action: a switch-off order from your grid operator. And every decision is recorded in a log that says who decided what, and why.

When the grid asks, the home will be able to answer

Prices are the first step. The next one, which SmartGridready is already working on, is direct requests from the grid: a power limit, or a period during which certain appliances wait. casasmooth can already receive them. They feed into the plan and the rules, are recorded in the log and remain reversible. No grid operator sends them to our customers yet. On the day yours does, the box will still need to be connected to your grid operator, with your consent.

Want to know what your installation can gain on both sides of the meter? Discover our Energy page or contact us: tell us what you have on the roof and in the basement.

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