Charge points count as flexibility, and flexibility counts as tradable. Between the two sit prequalification, minimum lot sizes and the question of whether a vehicle will be plugged in at seven tomorrow. A ranking of revenue streams by reachability.
Charging infrastructure is one of the few loads on the grid that can be shifted without anyone noticing. From that follows the obvious proposition that this shiftability can be marketed — on the exchange, in control reserve, towards the grid operator.
The proposition is correct. The order in which it is correct is often presented wrongly. Sorted by what an average site can actually reach, the ranking looks different from the one in the slide deck.
First: costs that never arise
The largest and safest amount is not a trading revenue but an avoided line on an invoice.
An operator on continuous metering pays a demand charge based on the highest quarter-hour of the year. A flattened charging curve lowers that quarter-hour permanently — with no trading counterparty, no prequalification and no risk. Added to that are the reduced grid fee for atypical grid use under § 19 (2) StromNEV and the grid fee reduction for controllable consumption devices under § 14a EnWG.
This is unspectacular and routinely skipped in flexibility discussions because it does not look like trading. For most sites it is nevertheless the largest item — and the only one that contains no assumption about future market prices. How the underlying control works is covered in the article on smart charging.
Second: the dynamic tariff
Since 1 January 2025 every electricity supplier has had to offer a dynamic tariff (§ 41a EnWG). Access to the exchange price is therefore no longer a privilege of large consumers but a change of contract.
For a site with shiftable load this is the most direct lever: the day-ahead price is known the previous day, the spread between the most and least expensive hours is considerable on many days, and a depot whose vehicles are not needed until the following morning can capture almost all of it.
Two caveats belong to the picture. First, dynamic works in both directions. Anyone who switches tariff without controlling load simply pays more in the wrong hours. Second, the benefit scales with shiftability. A fast-charging park at a motorway junction has almost none; a depot with twelve hours of dwell time has a great deal.
Third: the greenhouse-gas quota
Operators of publicly accessible charge points can have the electricity charged credited as a greenhouse gas reduction quota and sell it. This is not flexibility marketing, but it is a recurring annual income that depends essentially on clean record keeping: charge point registered, volumes recorded defensibly, evidence maintained.
It belongs on this list because in practice it produces money more often than any exchange strategy and is claimed far less often. That achievable prices have fallen considerably changes little — the effort is small once the recording is in place anyway.
Fourth: control reserve
Here it gets demanding. Trading primary and secondary control reserve requires prequalification with the transmission system operator, minimum bid sizes in the megawatt range and — the real hurdle — a binding commitment to deliver the offered capacity during the tender period.
A charging site cannot commit to that alone. Whether enough vehicles are plugged in at two o'clock on a Tuesday is not the operator's decision. The route therefore runs through an aggregator that bundles many installations into a pool and carries the availability risk. The operator supplies controllability and measurements and receives a share.
This is realistic for sites with predictable dwell behaviour — depots, large employee car parks — not for a public charge point with changing occupancy. And it presupposes controllability that reacts within seconds and can be evidenced afterwards.
What all four require
The same infrastructure sits underneath every one of these revenue streams:
- Measure. Not just "how much", but per quarter-hour, per charge point and defensibly. Where third parties are billed, in compliance with metrology law.
- Control. A power setpoint has to actually reach the charge point and take effect there — including when the cloud connection is down.
- Forecast. Without an expectation of occupancy, departure times and building load, any optimisation is a bet on the average.
- Evidence. Every flexibility revenue has to be proven afterwards to somebody: the grid operator, the aggregator, the quota authority, the tax office.
These four points are why discussions about energy trading so often end in the backend rather than at the charger. aCharge Cloud brings sessions, measurements and billing together; on-site control is handled by a controller that keeps working offline — see load management.
What to check
- How shiftable is your load really? Measure the average dwell time per session. It is the ceiling on any marketing.
- Have you captured the avoidable costs? Demand charge, § 19 (2) StromNEV, § 14a EnWG — before you think about trading.
- Does your supply contract fit? A dynamic tariff without control is a risk, not an opportunity.
- Is the quota being claimed? If not, that is the fastest gap to close.
- Are your data defensible? Everything else depends on it.
If you want help sorting out which stage your site can reach, get in touch — or see how energy providers set this up.
As of 23 June 2026. Market prices, quota revenues and prequalification conditions change continuously; this article describes the mechanics, not today's price, and does not replace advice.
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