The report – Delivering a digitalised energy system – commissioned by the UK government, Ofgem and Innovate UK – makes six recommendations to help shape the requirements to deliver a digitalised and decarbonised energy system.

It describes a clear necessity to deeply digitalise the energy system. In the near future the sector will be managing millions of new assets on the system, from electric vehicles through to heat pumps, grid-scale storage and industrial demand-side actions – all of which need to seamlessly coordinate and deliver a stable system. Crucial to this transformation will be the customer; building their trust, giving them control and significantly minimising the complexity of the future system.

In making its recommendations, the Taskforce, which is run by Energy Systems Catapult, focused on four key areas – bringing value to consumers; accelerating decarbonisation; maintaining a stable, secure and resilient system; and optimising whole system investment and operation.

The recommendations are:

• Unlock value of customer actions and assets – Building trust and delivering control through a consumer consent portal, delivering a seamless ability for assets to connect and benefit from system value by mandating that all large customer energy assets are energy enabled. Consumer protection will need to be enhanced to reflect different risks and smart meter data needs to be released for the public good.
• Deliver interoperability – The sector needs to deliver interoperability through the development and deployment of four public interest digital assets with particular focus on a ‘digital spine’ To ensure interoperability, some existing assets can be built on, but will require data-sharing fabric, a data catalogue and the development of some limited but vital standards.
• Implement new digital governance approach and entities – Governance of new digital assets and actions will be important and need to be developed soon. Governance around public interest assets, interacting algorithms and opening up regulated assets to digital competition will be important. There also needs to be a digital delivery body established by government to deliver public interest assets quickly for subsequent handed-over to the sector.
• Adopt digital security measures – Digital security principles and interventions are crucial but need to be fit for digital purposes with focus on cascade impacts, zero trust principles and a sharing culture.
• Enable carbon monitoring and accounting – Carbon visibility sits at the heart of all that is proposed in the report, but much greater carbon visibility and standardisation is required. It is recommended that dynamic carbon monitoring is put in place, and an open carbon standard needs to be deployed economy-wide.
• Embed a digitalisation culture – Digitalisation is not valued or understood in all parts of the energy sector, with not enough skills or value given to digital assets and activities. The UK government’s Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (BEIS) should employ a Chief Data Officer and investors and the rating agencies need to value digital assets as well as their traditional value assessment for infrastructure.

Commenting on the report’s publication, Laura Sandys FEI, Chair of EDiT and Non-Executive Director at Energy Systems Catapult, said: ‘Digitalisation is no longer a nice to have – it’s essential in decarbonising Britain’s energy system, and will need deeply embedding into our energy system if we’re to meet our ambitious and legally-binding net zero targets. Without digitalisation the system will not be able to manage the growing complexities of a decarbonised system.’

‘The Taskforce’s recommendations aim to accelerate the journey to a digitalised, flexible and affordable energy system, and will unlock new business models, change existing functions and should deliver customers a new experience of energy.’

‘While many other industries are ahead in embedding digitalisation, the energy sector now has an opportunity to build on best practice and innovate with reduced risk and uncertainty. It’s critical we capture these opportunities to unlock the opportunities and innovation that digitalisation can offer.’