An open source tool for analyzing the impact of electricity network and retail tariffs on consumers

This paper presents an open source tool for analyzing existing and proposed electricity network and retail tariffs and particularly their impact on end users. Thousands of end-user load profiles and, where available, associated demographic information for each load profile can be used as inputs to the tool. A tariff database with associated API, that has been populated with a wide range of existing and proposed Australian tariffs, allows exploration of a wide range of possible tariff options and their implications both on cost reflectivity as well as customer bills. User defined tariffs can also be incorporated. This paper introduces some of the features of the tool as well as three case studies to illustrate how this tool can be used to better understand the potential impact of different tariffs on stakeholders including consumers of course, yet also distribution network businesses and retailers. The tool is open source and publicly available and has been developed in both Matlab and Python thereby providing flexibility for the user's preferred operating environment.