Beyond data: how to unlock investment in digital energy technologies

As part of techUK’s London Tech Week we were privileged to host and facilitate a virtual Ministerial-CEO Roundtable with the Rt Kwasi Kwarteng MP, Minister for Business, Energy and Clean Growth at BEIS.  The event was attended by senior representatives from techUK’s smarterUK Energy and Utilities group, who shared their views on what needs to happen to get investment flowing into digital energy technologies. The roundtable discussion was moderated by the Smart Energy and Utilities Chair - Richard Hampshire. 

The minister set the context for the roundtable around the role of data and digital technologies in delivering an optimised net zero energy system across vectors including electricity, gas, hydrogen and carbon capture that supports the integration of no-and-low carbon technologies.  The minister also highlighted the role of data in enabling markets to work effectively, as well as challenges of digitalising the energy system, achieving Net Zero, a green economic recovery, delivering at scale and the role government needs to play.

Each of the attendees had two minutes to outline their thoughts on the challenges and how policy could help achieve them.  The following meeting note outlines the key challenges and policy asks, which were:

• Clarity on relevant policies and governance with coordination across Government on delivery, such as addressing fragmentation in the governance arrangements.
• Create the environment to innovate through sandboxes and promote cross-sector collaboration to accelerate the scaling and commerialisation of successful innovations and realisation of benefits.
• Identify and address market and regulatory barriers to innovation and its commercialisation.
• Address market barriers so that appropriate investment signals in a whole system context encourage optimal deployment of energy and network assets.
• Coherent approach to fiscal incentives and taxation with respect to policy objectives on no-and-low carbon technologies versus climate contributing technologies.
• Policy and regulatory reform to unlock the value of a smart, flexible energy system for consumers.
• Ensure a just energy transition where low income households benefit from the energy transition and the energy system is designed around the behavior of the system users rather than the economics of incumbent industry players.
• Build on the work of the Energy Data Taskforce to address barriers to appropriate sharing of data and, where appropriate, implement mechanisms to facilitate that sharing of data.
• Take the opportunity to build the UK’s skills.
• Be bolder in the use of the Government’s own procurement processes to support delivery of these objectives.