Calling all energy system changemakers: help Energy Systems Nexus define projects for the pursuit of Net Zero

Comment by Alex Buckman, Energy Systems Nexus Lead

Positive change relies on a community discovering shared challenges that they care about. And being open to ideas from the wider world.

This is crucial when pursuing ways to reshape the energy system for Net Zero. But as well as being cleaner, it must be affordable, empower the consumers who depend on it, and provide economic opportunities for the innovators, large and small, who create it.

With this in mind, Energy Systems Nexus is throwing open its doors to the wider energy community – and we’re inviting likeminded changemakers to join us.

On 29 April, Nexus members – including Amazon, E.ON, and United Kingdom National Nuclear Laboratory – will be hosting an innovation event in London on 29 April. We’re bringing together progressive energy leaders and using our foundational principles of ‘define, collaborate, deliver’ to give the opportunity to:

• Experience how collaboration across all parts of the energy sector can create new, impactful opportunities to solve cross sector challenges; 

• Participate in shaping innovative whole systems R&D ideas that could be taken forward through a variety of funding routes;

• Network with leading organisations committed to accelerating the energy transition and building an integrated Net Zero future.

If you’re interested in being part of the conversation where these principles are put into action, please register here.

Last year, we welcomed senior stakeholders and big thinkers from some of the most progressive organisations. Here’s a summary of those discussions.

Collaborate

We hosted a roundtable session in central London where we were joined by around 30 decision-makers from across the sector, including:

• Gas and electricity retail

• Heat networks

• Data centres

• Thermal generation

• Renewables generation

• Regulated and independent network companies

• The National Energy System Operator (NESO)

• The Department for Energy Security and Net Zero (DESNZ) and its Mission Control clean power centre

The roundtable featured an opening presentation from Guy Newey, CEO of Energy Systems Catapult, and its chairman Tony Cocker on the whole systems nature of the Net Zero transition. While Chris Stark, Head of UK’s Mission Control for clean power, gave a speech outlining the government’s priorities.

The challenge set for the attendees was delivering energy system flexibility. This is seen as exactly the type of whole system challenge that will require a diverse range of perspectives and therefore where the Nexus, and its members, can and should be contributing.

This led to discussions on:

• Empowering consumers: To maintain momentum on decarbonisation it will be critical to empower consumers, giving them choices and agency over their own energy consumption. Flexibility, in particular, where consumers store and release energy from their own home batteries and electric vehicles to help balance the grid offers a major near-term opportunity to reinvent the consumer-energy relationship.

• Avoiding missteps, embracing risk and delivering at pace: Looking back, the UK’s energy transition fell short on energy efficiency and preparing the built environment – mistakes we cannot afford to repeat.

• Learning lessons from outside energy: Other sectors, such as telecoms, have also undergone major transformations and it’s important that the energy sector looks beyond its boundaries to discover lessons other parts of the economy have already learned.

• Opportunities from data centres: Demand from data centres will be a key feature of the energy system in the coming decade, creating many technology and system innovation opportunities. To take advantage it’s important that we quickly understand the energy demand and technical characteristics of different types of data centres.

• The changing roles of energy vectors: As the energy system changes, the role and therefore the operational characteristics of different aspects of the system will change significantly. For instance, the operation of the gas system, driven by major changes to the volume and profile of gas demand, will place very different demand on the overall system and component parts within it. Understanding the impact, innovation and investment needs in key areas requiring change is critical to maintaining energy security through the transition.

Define

The Nexus programme delivers projects in crucial areas of interest to its members. With each member having its own priorities, deciding where to focus efforts could be seen as a challenge. However, we see this as an opportunity to identify common challenges and innovative commercial opportunities that can be developed through collaboration. The Nexus members do this by designing projects through a Structured Innovation Process (SIP), facilitated by Energy Systems Catapult.

This process involves a series of co-creation workshops where all Nexus members, and external advisors, help to shape a longlist of project concepts. The SIP concludes with the members agreeing the project scope that will ultimately deliver high-impact analysis to de-risk decisions needed to reach Net Zero.

Deliver

So far, we’ve delivered insight on a diverse range of common challenges for our members, from flexibility pathways to high-temperature process heat decarbonisation and waste heat integration for heat networks. Our work is delivering unique and commercially valuable insights to our members. There is a lot more to come, from resilience and AI to supply chains and delivering a just transition for consumers.

In our Flex Mix project, we used cutting edge models to show that flexibility is critical to delivering a low-cost, equitable and resilient Net Zero energy system. To address uncertainty of the mix of flexibility required, we explored what drives the need for different types, locations, scales and durations of flexibility – and how they might be used.

Because collaborations on flexibility rely on a common understanding of flexible technologies and the services that they provide, we created a taxonomy of technical definitions and everyday descriptions along with a map describing key elements of the energy system that underpin it.

Our members felt it was important to share our key findings with the sector, so we also published an Insights report showing how flexibility could be worth £125bn to the UK between now and 2050.

Help inform our future projects

Nexus members are hosting the next Innovation Event in London on 29 April.

If you are interested in joining other likeminded changemakers from the sector then please register your interest here. Join us – and help define how we deliver whole systems projects in the pursuit of Net Zero.