Recently, Laura Selgrad from the research group “Smart Grids and Energy Markets” (SGEM) presented her work “The Price of Comfort: How much is indoor temperature flexibility worth?” at the UGent Workshop on the Economics of Flexible Electricity Demand (Next in Flex 2026) at Ghent University.

Heat pumps can shift their electricity use to cheaper hours, yet many households still avoid dynamic tariffs because of the price risk. In the setting Laura studies, an aggregator takes over the dynamic tariff and controls the heat pump, and in return the household accepts small, temporary deviations from its preferred indoor temperature. Laura uses German day-ahead market prices to estimate how much an aggregator could pay households for this comfort flexibility, depending on how large the temperature deviation is and when it happens. In her talk, she also outlined the household side: a planned field experiment in which households offer temperature flexibility directly through an app.

The workshop brought together economists and engineers working on flexible electricity demand, with a strong focus on residential heating and household behavior. Discussions with other participants, including researchers from Ghent University working on choice experiments and field trials with heat pump flexibility, gave valuable feedback for the next steps of the project.