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Dynamic electricity contract: who benefits and who should wait?
What an hourly-price electricity contract is, which meter you need in Flanders, Wallonia or Brussels, which households it can suit, and how to compare before you switch.
In all three Belgian regions, you can now find “dynamic” electricity contracts: you pay a different price every hour, and using power when it is cheap lowers your bill. That works well for some homes and badly for others. Here is how to tell which group you are in before you sign.
What a dynamic contract is
With a normal contract, the price per kWh is fixed for a year, or follows a formula that changes once a month or once a quarter. With a dynamic contract, the energy price follows the short-term electricity market, the exchange where suppliers buy power for the next day (CREG, the federal regulator, in French). The price changes every hour or every quarter-hour, and you know the prices the day before (Vlaamse Nutsregulator, price report 2025, in Dutch).
Your supplier adds its own fixed amounts to the exchange price, as written on the tariff sheet (the price card of your contract). So two dynamic contracts can give quite different bills.
You need a smart meter that shares your data
A dynamic contract needs your use per quarter-hour, which only a digital (smart) meter records. Who handles this depends on your region:
- Flanders (Fluvius): quarter-hour values are read by default since 2026, but they are not shared with your supplier without your permission. With a dynamic contract, Fluvius passes them on for your bill (Fluvius, in Dutch).
- Wallonia (ORES or RESA): you need a communicating meter with its communicating function switched on (CWaPE, in French). With ORES, you can ask for one and the meter swap is free; your supplier then asks ORES to activate your quarter-hour data (ORES, in French).
- Brussels (Sibelga): you can ask Sibelga for a smart meter, which it must install within four months (BRUGEL, in French). Since 1 June 2025, it can send data to the market; with the detailed regime (R3) it sends your usage curve every day; ask your supplier which regime its dynamic offer needs (BRUGEL, annual report 2025, in French).
Who can benefit, and who should wait
The clearest figures come from the Flemish regulator’s 2025 report (Vlaamse Nutsregulator). They are Flemish figures; network costs and levies differ in Wallonia and Brussels.
- For a Flemish household using 3,500 kWh a year, the regulator calculated that a dynamic contract was on average the cheapest type in 2025: about €1,203 for electricity, €62 less than a variable contract and €193 less than a fixed one. This is an average, not a promise for your home. Some dynamic contracts have a high fixed fee, which weighs more if you use little.
- These contracts often suit homes with large, movable users, such as an electric car or a heat pump, and people willing to watch when they use power. A home battery or an energy management system (a box that switches devices on and off automatically) can help.
- The risk: if you use a lot of power during the usual morning and especially evening peaks, your bill can end up higher than with a normal contract. In 2025 the highest hourly price on the Belgian exchange was €517.57 per MWh (about €0.52 per kWh, before your supplier’s extras and VAT).
- Negative hours exist: in 2025 there were about 520 hours with a negative exchange price, roughly 6% of all hours. But only the energy part of your bill goes down. Network costs, levies and the fixed fee still apply.
Compare in your region
- Check your meter. Without a smart meter that shares quarter-hour data, a dynamic contract is not possible.
- Use your regulator’s free comparator. Flanders: the V-test, which can simulate dynamic contracts on your own quarter-hour data from Mijn Fluvius (see our article on comparing your contract with the V-test). Wallonia: CompaCWaPE, which includes dynamic offers since June 2025. Brussels: BRUGEL’s BruSim.
- Look at your evenings. If cooking, heating and charging all happen then and cannot move, be careful.
Before you decide
Read the tariff sheet: the fixed fee and the extra amounts per kWh matter as much as the exchange price. In Flanders, also watch your monthly peak: shifting everything into the same cheap hour can raise your capacity tariff, a Flemish network charge. Households can change contract at any time, free of charge, with four weeks’ notice (CREG, in French). So a dynamic contract is not a trap, but it does ask you to keep paying attention.
Unsure whether your home and equipment fit a dynamic contract? Tell us about your home.