WIREDGOV

Demand flexibility will increasingly take centre stage in energy security. Can industry play a role while contributing to industrial development?

Today, imported natural gas underpins the UK’s energy security strategy. The UK’s ambitious Clean Power 2030 Action Plan (CP2030) intends to reduce this dependency by delivering an electricity system that uses only 5% unabated natural gas by 2030, with 95% clean power – that includes renewables, nuclear, low carbon dispatchable (hydrogen and Carbon Capture and Storage(CCS)) supported by storage, interconnections and consumer-led flexibility.

However, as a transitional measure to support energy security, CP2030 retains 35GW of unabated gas capacity. In future, system reliability and energy security must reflect an increasingly electrified and variable system, which will make flexible energy consumption increasingly important. Indeed, demand flexibility may be one of the quickest ways to increase security while reducing energy costs.

CP2030 cannot sacrifice industrial competitiveness. A key challenge highlighted in the Invest 2035 Industrial Strategy is that UK electricity prices are higher than European countries like Germany and France. Meanwhile, in 2023 industry accounted for 27% of the UK’s electricity demand. Around 70% of electricity consumption from industry was supplied by the grid, with an additional 20% from combined heat and power (CHP), and 10% from onsite generation. Industry could be incentivised to play a bigger role in securing the CP2030 system with solutions that also support lower industrial energy costs.

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