Image courtesy NESO
The UK’s National Energy System Operator (NESO) has released its first Whole Systems Innovation Strategy, listing demand-side flexibility (DSF) and unlocking systems capacity as key priorities.
According to NESO, with the release the UK government’s Clean Power 2030 Actions Plan, innovation will be crucial.
To do so, NESO’s strategy identifies six innovation priorities, which they say requires accelerated innovation to begin preparing the whole energy system for net zero by 2050.
Commenting in the Strategy was Anna Carolina Tortora, NESO’s head of AI, innovation and energy sector digitalisation: “…this year’s Innovation Strategy, our first since becoming NESO, is designed to accelerate the drive towards clean power.
“Progress is already underway in many of our priority areas, but we must scale these efforts up and strengthen industry-wide collaboration.”
Have you read:
NESO reports 3.9GWh consumption reduction through demand flexibility
Ofgem approves NESO’s grid connections reform plan in UK
The six priorities include:
- Unlocking demand-side flexibility
Tortora cites how the UK’s Clean Power 2030 Action Plan calls for 10-12GW of DSF by the end of the decade, “a huge uplift, and innovation will play a critical part in achieving this.”
NESO cites their Crowdflex project, funded through Ofgem’s strategic innovation fund (SIF), which aims to establish domestic flexibility as a reliable grid management resource, increasing the integration of renewable energy into the grid, reducing balancing costs, and decreasing the need for additional capacity or network reinforcement.
The project has been conducting large-scale consumer trials and gathering data to develop models to more accurately forecast consumer flexibility.
- Optimising network capacity
Tortora adds that, while the Action Plan provides a clear framework for infrastructure investment, “innovation can help unlock untapped potential in the existing system, delivering greater value to customers.”
She cites the Grid Connect X project, which has been creating a Grid Connection Simulation Tool that will make it quicker and easier to connect renewable energy assets to the national power grid.
- Customer energy efficiency and decarbonisation
According to Tortora, in light of system strain resulting from widespread electrification, innovating on customer energy efficiency is a key priority.
Namely, says NESO, innovation will be essential for developing markets, business models and technologies that can enhance efficiency and accelerate renewable adoption.
NESO cites their project, Electrification of the residential heat sector, which examines the impact of large-scale heat pump adoption on power demand across GB. The project aims to estimate half-hourly electricity demand profiles at different spatial scales and quantify available flexibility from electrified residential heating.
- Drive whole systems integration
To reach net zero, says NESO, a more coordinated approach is essential, considering the best solutions across electricity, gas, heat, carbon and transport simultaneously.
NESO says more intelligent system design is therefore needed at every level, moving away from planning and operational decisions that are made in isolation.
They add that innovation can support the transformation for strategic energy planning, for example by creating new multi-vector solutions, improved system modelling and testing interoperability between energy plans.
NESO cites their Powering Wales Renewably project, which brings together the Welsh Government, whole energy system users and network operators to develop a digital twin of the Welsh energy system.
- System security and resilience
Said Tortora: “With a shifting climate, intensifying weather events and evolving security threats, maintaining system security and resilience is becoming more challenging.”
Thus, she adds, safeguarding them is key, especially as the energy system becomes more digitised and decentralised.
According to NESO, there are three areas where innovation can help. One is managing the operational impact of an increasingly dynamic energy system. The second is understanding advances in computing, including the challenges from increased digitalisation and use of AI. The third is in understanding the changing external environment, such as shifting weather patterns, and what impact this could have on security of supply and resilience.
NESO cites their Network security in a Quantum Future project, which seeks to address the threat of cyberattacks against the energy system.
The tool created by this project, currently in its Alpha phase, will help identify threats proactively by evaluating systems, protocols, and data assets to find vulnerabilities that could be targeted by quantum attacks.
- Leveraging digitalisation and AI
In the realm of digitalisation, says NESO, innovation will be vital for embedding advanced digital tools across the energy system. This involves not only developing new solutions and exploring emerging technologies, but also scaling proven initiatives to unlock their full potential.
NESO cites their Virtual Energy System’s Data Sharing Infrastructure (DSI) Pilot, integrating expertise from NESO, project partners, and the National Digital Twin Programme, with support from Ofgem.
The project established initial DSI capabilities and illustrated its potential in facilitating scalable data sharing through an outage planning use case scenario.
The results from the pilot will guide future development to focus on scaling up, both in terms of the number of participating organisations and the variety of available data products. Additionally, the results have provided valuable learning on the social aspects of implementing the DSI across the energy system, including, legal, skills and capabilities and regulatory requirements.
Additional innovation projects directly mentioned by NESO include FastPress, which has demonstrated the capability to autonomously manage daily operational scenarios efficiently, as well as their Volta Programme, which aims to show how AI-driven insights and automation can improve decision-making.
NESO says over the 2024/25 period they had 61 projects go live, with 29 registered and 29 completed.
