I don't have market pricing here in Spain, I have fixed per kWh pricing only. I prefer this because I hate the min-maxing and figuring out cheap hours etc. I just want to use my energy when it suits my life, I don't want to rearrange my life around it. But the people that are totally into that love it because it allows them to save cost. I really don't care.
I think you have to get market pricing if you have solar panels but most people don't bother especially because that market pricing makes them totally cost-ineffective. Also, I live in an apartment anyway where I can't even have them if I wanted to.
Yep. But it is still cheaper around the year than "old-style" providers with fixed or per-month prices. I could pay 100 euro/month for electricity (for everything but hot water and warming) and gas (for hot water and warming of house, double-contour gas boiler) in summer and 250/month in winter, but typical "fixed-price" contract is 200-210/month for my house each month no matter what.
And fixed part of these 100-250 Euro (like grid maintenance, which doesn't depend on consumption) is rather large, something about 75 Euro/month, so in summer I'm paying almost only for grid :)