Earlier this year, the newly created parliamentary Energy Security and Net Zero Committee launched four wide-reaching enquiries:

• Preparing for the winter – Examining the lessons from the high energy prices of last winter, the customer protections offered by Ofgem and legislation regarding pricing controls.
• Heating our homes – Investigating the changes needed to deliver energy efficient homes across the UK; and government’s role in making the decarbonisation of heating affordable and innovative.
• A flexible grid for the future – Looking at what needs to be done to ensure the UK has the grid capacity for the future to the development of renewable energy sources.
• Keeping the power on: our future energy technology mix – Exploring how the energy mix of the UK needs to change to deliver enough capacity while delivering against Net Zero targets.

Energy Systems Catapult responded to each of these enquiries. Across our four responses, we highlight the a need for ambitious reform across multiple parts of the energy policy and regulation landscape in order to unleash the technological and business model innovations that are needed to deliver decarbonisation.

In particular, we highlight:

• Whole systems strategic planning is essential for creating a foundation that supports large-scale investment in regulated electricity networks and in more novel technologies. The Future Systems Operator – due to be introduced under the Energy Bill – could have a key role as a “systems architect”. At a local level, we advocate for the use of Local Area Energy Planning as a systematic way of aligning spatial and energy planning.
• Complementing the role of strategic planning is the role of markets in delivering innovation and consumer-centric offerings. Reforms are needed to align the incentives on businesses with the target outcomes of decarbonisation. In particular, electricity markets must become more granular in time and space to reveal the value of demand flexibility. Coupled with that, retail energy markets must be able to deliver differentiated offerings that help households decarbonise.
• Strategic planning and market-led delivery should be underpinned by a number of key enables. We highlight the key roles data and digitalisation will play in a future energy system. Expert supply chains are essential for the transformation of homes and large infrastructure, supporting green jobs. Investment in the grid is itself an enabler – our work for the Electricity Networks Commissioner identified ways of speeding up delivery of transmission infrastructure. Lastly, policy and regulation must become more dynamic, making greater use of real-world testing environments to learn and adapt much more quickly than they have done to date.

Read our responses below.