The Utility Week Forum brought together a number of expert speakers and industry representatives to address and debate the challenges facing the energy industry as we accelerate through the energy transition. Here are three key takeaways from the January 2024 event.
1. Automation and data insights can drive participation and value in flexibility
Market players including retailers are now asking for more detailed information – particularly when it comes to dynamic time-of-use pricing – to help them sell flexibility where it has the most value. Automation can be part of helping flexible energy assets to participate in the system and to benefit from that dynamic time-of-use pricing.
“The best people to provide and to generate that data would be the infrastructure providers – the DSOs, the DNOs. The pricing mechanisms should reflect that need for greater instrumentation, greater data generation throughout the system,” says Rich Hampshire, Vice President Consulting Expert, CGI.
Project BiTraDER is just one example of how flex market platforms can coordinate data flows to facilitate better pricing and performance insights. The project aims to create a blueprint for an integrated DSO control room of the future, to help all participants unlock more value.
Read more about data and digitalisation requirements in CGI’s report.
2. Competition and collaboration can – and should – work side by side to benefit the industry as a whole
The current price control period – RIIO-ED2 – drives competition which wouldn’t otherwise exist in this system of regulated monopolies. RIIO-ED2 incentivises system operators to invest in innovation to provide value to customers and hit performance targets.
That competition can be crucial to the development of new solutions within the energy ecosystem. Electron is an advocate for this as it also means system operators can choose the right partners to deliver the best solutions for their networks and customers.
However, the Utility Week Forum raised the question of when utilities should collaborate versus compete with one another.
“Vulnerable customers and environmental change resilience [is where] we need everybody to be working together and sharing their ideas, which doesn’t always happen as much as it should,” says Maxine Frerk, Director Grid Edge Policy at SGN.
Frerk shares examples of where achieving resilience requires collaboration across sectors as well as within the energy sector:
- The workforce
- Asset management processes
- Cyber
- Climate change
The power of collaboration
Rich Hampshire, CGI, also points to the project Powering Wales Renewably.
This is an example of whole-system collaboration, aiming to build a digital twin of the Welsh electricity system across distribution and transmission networks. The project aims to help Wales maximise its use of renewable energy – where flexibility markets playing a key role.
“Probably the most powerful takeaway from me [of this project] is not the technical aspects,” says Hampshire.
“Throughout the last day and a half, we’ve heard a lot of messages around the importance of collaboration. And that’s not just collaboration between two organisations. This collaboration between stakeholders is about collaboration through the entire value chain.”
Read more about the importance of a whole-system view for the energy transition.
3. Communication is the key to getting customers engaged with the energy transition
As was a key theme at Enlit in 2023, engaging with consumers to help them understand the energy transition was a recurring topic at the Utility Week Forum.
Frerk shared that, in some instances, it’s better for retail utilities to communicate directly with their customers. In others, a trade body can help to disseminate relevant information. Smart Energy GB, for example, in how they’re promoting smart metering.
This can extend to helping consumers participate in flexibility events. The demand flexibility service is making flexibility more mainstream, with 2.2 million customers participating so far over winter 23/24.
Building awareness around the importance of consumer involvement as well as the financial benefit to them will help accelerate the service’s take up in the future – releasing further capacity on the grid.
“Power is moving to us as consumers and electric bills will no longer be driven by how much we use, but more by when we use,” says Hampshire.
