To decarbonise the UK’s power system and deliver enduring energy resilience, significantly higher levels of electricity system flexibility will be required, achieved in part through digitalisation. Good progress has been made in recent years to digitalise the energy system. However, the rate of change is not enough to achieve decarbonisation commitments and new thinking is required.
In this paper we have considered alternative pathways available to achieve a digitalised energy system by 2035, exploring between the extremes of regulatory and government driven change and industry driven change. We have identified three plausible pathways, each with different interventions or levers to effect change, benefits and disbenefits.
This paper is a call to action for greater collaboration across industry, academia, government, and the regulator.