Clean Energy Retail – The Role of Clean Energy Retailers in the Net Zero Transition was a report by Energy Systems Catapult commissioned by OVO Energy exploring both the expanded role that retailers needed to play in the Net Zero transition and the policy & regulatory reforms required to incentivise low carbon choices and new innovations.

Policy reforms included:

• Incentivising Low Carbon – enabling energy retailers to develop offers which incentivise people to make low carbon choices and become more flexible. Faster rollout of smart meters will be crucial but wider reform is also needed to sharpen wholesale price signals market-wide with half-hourly settlements and to strengthen green tariff frameworks.
• Improving Customer Experience and Competition Metrics – making it simpler to choose low carbon offerings and easier to port that offer when switching supplier, whilst maintaining trust. This means simplifying the customer experience and improving data access.
• Innovation, Vulnerable Households and a Just Transition – ensuring the transition to clean energy is accessible for all. Consumer protection measures must be updated and move with the times to continue to look after consumer interests. We also need smarter approaches to addressing fuel poverty, making use of data to identify those at risk and partnerships to help determine interventions.

This will require energy retailers to build trust and strengthen relationships with customers, and develop innovative propositions, that focus on:

• Consumer outcomes – focusing on delivering the outcomes that reflect consumer preferences, house type, level of EV charge, desire for ‘green’ electricity etc, as opposed to simply billing for gas or electricity.
• Low carbon products and services – developing personalised, “modular” and adaptable propositions – including bundling a range net zero products and services (e.g. heat pumps, EV chargers, solar, battery storage, etc..).
• Vulnerable households – support for vulnerable households should be designed to also drive low carbon objectives that improve future resilience and drive energy efficiency.
• Financing – facilitating long term financing for customers, managing the complexity of installing energy efficiency and low carbon technologies with SME partners.
• Innovative tariffs – mainstreaming innovative tariff offerings, such as “time of use”, “type of use” and green tariffs to improve the customer experience and make the best use of new energy assets.

Energy Systems Catapult led both the Energy Data Taskforce (EDTF) and subsequent Energy Digitalisation Taskforce (EDiT), both commissioned by the UK Government, Ofgem and Innovate UK to develop an integrated data and digital strategy to helps unlock the opportunities of a modern, decarbonised and decentralised energy system for the benefit of consumers.

Described as “game-changing” by the ENA, the taskforces engage with hundreds of organisations and kick-started over 50 digital and data projects within two years of beginning.

This included Energy Systems Catapult working with National Grid (formerly WPD) to help the network operator to improve internal data processes and release more data – resulting in the launch of their Connected Data Portal which now hosts almost 100 open datasets about National Grid’s network infrastructure and operations, including a number of live data sources.

To increase engagement with the newly published data, the Catapult helped to identify some key challenges that could be solved with data and engaged the innovator community through data challenge competitions.

Outcomes of the Presumed Open Data challenge included:

• 365 Registrations for the kick-off event with individuals come from 72 different organisations/institutions, 15 different countries and 30 universities
• 55 teams –  a total of 142 individuals – participated in a least one round
• By the 5th round of tasks, 37 teams survived and and of those 65% outscored the benchmark with the Top 5 teams participating in a special “Value in Energy Data” seminar
• A number participants publishing their work in peer reviewed academic journals and highlighting our data challenge approach as a useful way to link academic talent with industry need.

Watch the Value in Energy Data – Presumed Open Data seminar:

Energy Systems Catapult collaborated with UK Power Networks (UKPN) under Network Innovation Allowance funding to investigate the behaviour of domestic electricity consumers and the distribution network supplying them under a Cold Start scenario in 2030.

With electrification of heating and transport expected to be at far higher level in the next decade, an extended power outage under severe weather conditions would lead to a sudden demand surge to levels far higher than normal peak levels as electrical devices are reactivated.

Using an innovative simulation tool, our Systems Engineering team created dynamic models using a portion of real electricity network to understand the physical impacts of fault conditions on energy assets and appliances within the network under different outage scenarios. A range of metrics were produced, including power flows, voltages, loading and balancing.

The results will allow UKPN to identify:

• Network areas with high risk of adverse effects from power restoration after Cold Start.
• Mitigation measures such as operational policies, network controls, demand-side flexibility and conventional reinforcement.
• Explore novel mitigation methods based on in-home appliance flexibility.

Good Energy commissioned Energy Systems Catapult to carry out whole system scenario modelling – with the specific constraints of allowing no nuclear power or fossil fuel energy supply – to determine if Net Zero by 2050 was still possible.

We utilised our Energy System Modelling Environment – which is a peer reviewed, least cost optimisation model. Plus our new Storage and Flexibility Model (SFM) – which provides a greater level of detail into how the energy system might function under Good Energy’s chosen scenarios.

The SFM platform produces highly granular dispatch information and explores the different roles and responsibilities of energy technologies and services in 2050, on an hour-by-hour basis.

Good Energy used the modelling results to compile a report supporting their efforts to increase renewable energy generation and storage in the coming decades.