Comment by Charles Parkinson, Senior Insight and Impact Analyst

Quarter three has seen our commitment to fostering innovation continue to yield impressive results across the energy sector.

We are an impact focused organisation, which is why we’re always delighted to see the innovators we’ve supported raising crucial investment, allowing them to develop, pilot, or scale up new Net Zero technologies and services.

Highlights this quarter include measurable.energy, a participant in the Net Zero Innovation Platform, successfully raising £4 million. While Sitigrid, which we supported with investment readiness through IC9, secured £77,000 and announced an exciting new partnership with Drax.

We prioritise helping SMEs to accelerate their products and services to market. During this quarter we’ve seen great successes. SMPNet, who we supported in IC3 and IC8, announced that they will be launching their software on Northern Powergrid’s network, and PeerCo, an SME engaged with the Smart Manufacturing Decarbonisation Hub programme, onboarded their first manufacturing customers to their platform.

IONATE, who we assisted on one of our innovator challenges, are a great example of an SME at the forefront of tackling Net Zero challenges, developing smart transformer technology. They have been selected to receive funding and support as part of the second phase of the Defence Innovation Accelerator for the North Atlantic. Additionally, IONATE is running a Network Innovation Allowance (NIA) project with National Grid Electricity Distribution and EA Technology, both of whom we have collaborated with on the Prospering from the Energy Revolution (PfER) programme.

Following the immensely successful trials we have seen Warm Homes Prescription® transform from a proven concept into a replicable outcome with SGN awarding us a contract to deliver warmer homes to 1,800 vulnerable households in Scotland and southern England for the next two winters, 2024-26.

Following presentation of the completed Local Area Energy Plan (LAEP), Lancaster City Council has signed off on the plan and are working on its implementation. Elsewhere, LAEP is being championed, including in an impact report by London Councils which said, “We think LAEP are a key tool in ensuring London’s energy system meets our growth ambitions… we have been making the case to [DESNZ, GB Energy, NESO]… that LAEPs provide a necessarily granular underpinning to wider system planning.”

The National Electricity System Operator (NESO)’s flagship report covering its advice to the government on achieving Clean Power by 2030 refers to both the Catapult’s Automatic Asset Registration (AAR) project and work on the Digital Orchestrator. Meanwhile we published a first-of-a-kind report,  ‘Transitional arrangements for electricity market reform’, commissioned by Octopus Energy. Octopus Energy asked us to develop recommendations on how to protect investments while reforming electricity markets and we believe this topic could help build consensus for this essential change.

This is just a taste of what we’ve been up to, check out the latest news, blogs, case studies, and reports. Want to be kept up to date? Sign up to our newsletter or follow us on LinkedIn.