Abstract
Wholesale electricity prices can rapidly change in real-time, yet households usually face fixed-price electricity tariffs. Therefore, households that predominantly use energy when wholesale prices are low implicitly cross-subsidize households whose energy use is more weighted to high-price periods. We develop a decomposition method that maps substation data on electricity use to demographic data, identifying the household characteristics associated with this cross-subsidization in Victoria, Australia. We find that households in areas with low house prices and high levels of renters and elderly residents are the net funders of this implicit subsidy. These households currently have the lowest average energy cost for retailers to service, and may be the greatest immediate beneficiaries if real-time retail tariffs are made available to them. Finally, we present evidence that cross-subsidy magnitudes have been growing in recent years, coincident with rapid solar generator penetration.
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