New research by Energy Systems Catapult has identified the innovations needed to unlock a £70 billion opportunity for the UK. Achieving the UK government’s Net Zero targets at least cost hinges on the high use of renewables, nuclear, and crucially innovations that enable flexibility.
Technologies with the potential to provide this flexibility at scale include electric vehicles (EVs), heat stores and static batteries, hydrogen storage, and digital services and consumer propositions that coordinate and control the storage and release of energy in an increasingly decentralised approach.
The Innovating to Net Zero 2026 report modelled and assessed four future scenarios for the energy system to understand how variation in energy generation and demand might evolve depending on uptake of new low carbon and flexible technologies.
It has identified five peaks gaps in energy supply and demand that will shape the overall scale and architecture of the UK’s cleaner energy system, and the innovations in flexibility technologies and services needed to manage them and unlock opportunities for UK businesses and consumers.
Guy Newey, CEO of Energy Systems Catapult, said:
“Embracing flexibility could help the UK save billions in infrastructure costs – while giving homegrown innovators a platform to scale up and compete globally.”
You can download the report and use the interactive dashboard to explore the modelling data that informed it here.