The Energy Digitalisation Strategy, developed by the government, Ofgem and Innovate UK in coordination with the energy sector, sets out a vision and suite of policies to digitalise the energy system. Digitalisation will enable millions of low carbon assets, including solar PV, electric vehicles and heat pumps, to be optimised across our energy system.
The strategy has 3 key areas of focus:
- providing leadership and coordination
- ensuring regulation and policies incentivise digitalisation
- collaborating with the sector to develop digital tools and infrastructure
It aims to spur innovation and competition, facilitate new consumer offers, and reduce the cost of decarbonising the energy system.
Executive Summary
Data and digitalisation are transforming economies across the globe, in sectors from banking to transport to healthcare. It is now the turn of energy, with digitalisation an essential enabler of the rapid decarbonisation we need to avoid catastrophic climate change.
In April, the UK government announced a world-leading climate change target (the sixth Carbon Budget) to reduce emissions by 78% by 2035 compared to 1990 levels, on a pathway to net zero greenhouse emissions by 2050.
In the energy sector, we will need to deploy millions of low carbon technologies – including solar panels, heat pumps and electric vehicles.
Electricity from the sun and wind will need to be balanced, second-by-second, with the energydemand from our homes, businesses, and vehicles. Electricity will be stored for when it is required. Consumers will be able to choose from a range of smart technologies, tariffs and services to maximisetheir use of renewable energy whilst keeping their bills low. The benefits of this future ‘flexible’ low carbon system are significant – faster and lower cost decarbonisation, and lower bills for consumers. However, it will only be possible if we harness the power of data and digitalisation across our energy system. We need to move quickly; it will be very difficult to achieve the deep power sector decarbonisation needed to achieve targets for the sixth Carbon Budget without significantly higher levels of system flexibility.
This strategy and action plan, the first of its kind in the and one of the first in the world, provides a vision, approach, and suite of actions for digitalising the energy system so that wecan meet our net zero ambitions. It has been developed in partnership between the Department for Business, Energy, and Industrial Strategy (BEIS); Innovate UK;1 and the energy regulator, the Office of Gas and Electricity Markets (Ofgem). It builds on the impressiveprogress already being made by the sector, the work of the independent Energy Data Taskforce, and extensive stakeholder engagement throughout 2020 and early 2021. This strategy is being published alongside the government and Ofgem’s new Smart Systems andFlexibility Plan, which sets out how we will utilise technologies such as energy storage and flexible demand to integrate high volumes of low carbon power, heat and transport onto the energy system.
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