Demand response and vehicle-to-grid: Correlation
Prices it moves with, and why
Its value depends on the gap between peak and off-peak electricity prices and on what grid operators pay for flexibility. Costs are mainly smart meters and controls and, for vehicle-to-grid, bidirectional chargers and extra battery wear.
No public price Demand response and vehicle-to-grid has no public monthly price series: Earnings come from tariffs and grid payments, not a traded product.What its price moves with
Households and offices shift use when tariffs reward it, so the price of electricity, and how much it varies through the day, sets the value of flexibility. The electricity series is shown, but demand response itself has no price series.
Not enough overlapping price history to measure.At peak times the last power plant running is often gas-fired, so gas prices set peak electricity prices. Shifting demand away from those hours avoids running costly peakers, and dearer gas raises the value of flexibility.
Not enough overlapping price history to measure.Parked electric cars can charge when power is cheap and, with vehicle-to-grid, send energy back at peaks. The growing fleet is the largest new source of flexible demand, though battery wear and charger cost limit how much owners will offer.
Not enough overlapping price history to measure.Grid batteries do the same job as demand shifting: they absorb cheap power and release it at peaks. As battery prices fall, they compete with paying users to shift load, but they also enable home batteries that make flexibility easier.
Not enough overlapping price history to measure.Heat pumps and air conditioners can pre-heat or pre-cool buildings and water tanks, moving demand by a few hours without discomfort. Wider use of heat pumps therefore adds flexible load, as well as raising peaks if left unmanaged.
Not enough overlapping price history to measure.Pumped hydro is the long-established way to move electricity from cheap to dear hours. Demand response competes with it for the same price spread but needs no dam or reservoir, so it is often the cheaper first step.
No public price for pumped hydro storage, so the link is explained in words only.How to read these numbers
Correlation of monthly changes (the number in the coloured pill) compares how much each price moved, month by month, since 2006 or the first month both series exist. It runs from −1 to +1: near +1 the two usually rise and fall in the same months, near 0 there is no link, and a negative number means they tend to move in opposite directions. Above 0.7 is strong, 0.4 to 0.7 moderate, 0.2 to 0.4 weak.
12-month changes compare year-on-year moves, which shows whether two prices share the same cycles even when the month-to-month noise differs.
Price function is a straight-line fit of the two prices on logarithmic scales: price ≈ k × (partner price)β. β is how much this price moves, in per cent, for a 1% move in the partner over the whole period, and R² is the share of the variation the fit explains. Two prices that both drift up with inflation can fit well without any real link, so read it together with the monthly correlation.
Lead or lag checks whether the monthly correlation is clearly higher when one price is shifted by 1 to 6 months.
Correlation is not cause. The reasons on each card explain the economic link; the numbers show how strongly it has shown up in prices. Proxy series are US producer price indexes or related prices and can blur the real link.
Data: World Bank Commodity Price Data (Pink Sheet), October 2026; US Bureau of Labor Statistics producer price indexes, IMF primary commodity prices and US EIA prices via FRED, Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis, retrieved November 2026. Calculations by this site.