Comment by Jon Saltmarsh, CTO at Energy Systems Catapult

Let’s be honest – as fascinating as Australia’s approach to grid flexibility is, it’s hard to compete with watching the sun set from the top of Sydney Harbour Bridge. Though after a week immersed in solar energy systems, I’d argue the two aren’t as unconnected as they first seem.

I visited Sydney, Adelaide and Melbourne to talk to technical experts from across the energy sector at both federal and state level about the energy transition. I wanted to understand more about the Australian approach to energy flexibility – how it’s shaping energy use to make the system more resilient and capable of integrating far higher levels of renewable generation – and what lessons I could bring back to the UK.

Something that surprised me is how deeply the public mistrusts energy companies and therefore how much extra effort needs to go into earning social licence to operate. This made me reflect on whether consumer trust is now a bigger challenge than technology in delivering the grid flexibility needed for the future energy system.

Two systems, two very different problems

In Australia, the electricity system is increasingly shaped by too much supply at the wrong time. Solar panels provide a very large share of generation in the middle of the day, pushing demand toward minimum secure limits resulting in voltage instability and forcing system operators and networks to intervene.

To maintain stability, distribution networks in ‘high solar states’, such as South Australia, are introducing dynamic caps that automatically limit the amount of power that individuals can export at times of system stress.

In contrast, Great Britain is dealing with too much coincident demand at the local level. The rapid uptake of electric vehicles (EVs) and time of use tariffs means that charging can overload low voltage feeders and substations, even when the national system looks comfortable.

A core flexibility requirement is therefore to reduce peak EV charging demand by preserving diversity so that devices do not all respond to the same pricing signals at the same time.

On the surface, these look like technical problems with technical solutions. But underneath both lies the same constraint: household participation.

Capability is rising faster than participation

Both countries’ systems are now rapidly deploying assets capable of providing flexibility.

In Great Britain, smart meters are now the norm, and suppliers have embedded flexibility into mainstream retail offerings.

A striking data point comes from the Department for Transport’s EV Driver Tracker: 85% of EV drivers with a home charger report being on an EV tariff while 86% of home chargers are either smart or allow time of use charging.

Flexibility, in this case, is not a separate act, it is simply how people choose to charge their cars and save money.

Smart meter penetration in Australia varies from almost 100% in Victoria to 30-40% or less in most other states. But thanks to the Cheaper Home Batteries programme, Australia has been rapidly scaling static batteries.

Analysis I heard presented by Cyan Ventures showed that over 6 GWh of household battery capacity was installed between July 2025 and early 2026. This is a huge amount of potential flexibility.

Yet participation tells a different story. Only a small minority of Australian household batteries, estimated at 5-10%, are enrolled in virtual power plants or orchestrated for system benefit. Most are operated to maximise self-consumption of rooftop solar and minimise exposure to retailers and markets despite clear financial benefits from engaging with the market.

This gap between installed capability and dispatchable flexibility is where trust enters the frame.

What ‘trust’ means in energy flexibility

Trust in this context is not just whether consumers like their energy provider. It’s whether they believe that handing over some control will leave them better off.

For households, flexibility requires several leaps of faith:

• that their data will be handled properly;
• that automation will not lead to bill shocks;
• that control signals will be predictable and fair;
• that the value created will be shared, not captured elsewhere.

If any of those conditions are uncertain, rational consumers default to what they can control themselves. Batteries become private resilience assets. Solar is optimised behind the meter. Flexibility exists, but only for the household that paid for it.

Why GB has scaled participation faster

Great Britain’s success with tariffs shows how trust barriers can be lowered.

First, the proposition is simple and visible: cheaper charging with minimal effort. Drivers set a ‘start’ or ‘ready by’ time and the system does the rest. The optimisation is largely invisible as long as the car is ready in the morning.

Second, smart charging affects when energy is used, not whether it can be used. Nothing is taken away, just shifted.

Third, smart charging has been normalised through retail offerings rather than framed as a grid support programme. Consumers are customers first, flexibility providers second.

This does not mean that Great Britain has solved flexibility. We have yet to find a way to manage synchronised charging behaviour within local constraints. But critically, the pathway into participation is already mainstream.

Why Australia faces a harder trust challenge

Australia’s situation is more difficult because flexibility often feels like a restriction rather than an opportunity.

Dynamic export limits, inverter controls, and emergency backstops all touch directly on consumers’ perceived rights to generate and export their own energy. These interventions may be entirely justified from a system security perspective, but without high trust they are easily seen as the system taking something away.

Layer on top a history of low consumer trust in energy retailers, experiences of bill volatility, and tariff complexity, and it becomes understandable why many households choose self-consumption over orchestration, even if the system value is higher elsewhere.

In this context, 6 GWh installed is not 6 GWh dispatchable. Capacity numbers overstate what the system can actually call upon.

The implications for policy makers

The core implication is simple: flexibility policy must treat consumer participation as a critical component of the solution.

That means adopting the following principles:

• Stronger and more visible consumer protections around automation and tariffs.
• Clear, standardised control hierarchies so devices do not behave unpredictably.
• Transparent value sharing so households can see how flexibility benefits them.
• Interoperability between network and generation signals to avoid conflicting outcomes.

Energy Systems Catapult created the Living Lab in the UK to test just such principles with real people in real homes, and we have worked with the national research organisation CSIRO to help Australia create an equivalent the National Energy Analysis Centre. So, both countries now have the tools to test and refine future flexibility policy with consumers in a safe environment, before wider roll out.

Crucially, any financial incentives used to accelerate the uptake of assets should come with conditions. Funding should ensure assets such as batteries are used to support the energy system rather than just the individual. Otherwise, public money risks buying private resilience rather than public value.

Conclusion: flexibility is now a social question

Both Australia and Great Britain are proving that much of the technology for a flexible, distributed electricity system already exists. The real question now is whether consumers believe the system deserves their participation.

Great Britain has shown that clear value, simplicity and automation can overcome consumer trust barriers, at least for EV charging. Australia has shown that even massive deployment does not guarantee participation.

The next phase of the energy transition will be decided not by how many batteries or chargers are installed, but by whether people are willing to let them be used. That is no longer a marginal concern, it is a central system constraint.

To learn more about how consumers will be key to delivering the flexibility the grid needs, read our latest Innovating to Net Zero report. For more on the flexibility opportunities available for innovators, check out the GridFlex programme.