An Open Energy Advisory Group was convened on 2026-10-01, co-chaired by Icebreaker One, and National Grid.
Meeting Aims:
- To introduce all participants
- To establish ways of working and expectations
- To introduce and discuss work to date on the I&C Flex use case
- To establish the agenda for the next meeting alongside the areas for prioritisation for the next six months
Summary:
It was agreed that:
- members would send suggestions for additional stakeholders and end users through Icebreaker One before making direct approaches, to avoid duplicating outreach.
- members could add future use-case ideas to the shared log and provide further comments when the minutes were circulated.
It was noted that:
- discovery research has engaged more than 80 people across 51 organisations, but direct engagement with industrial and commercial (I&C) end users remains difficult.
- the proposed problem statement was that I&C businesses lack the trusted data needed to build robust business cases for flexibility participation. The two proposed use cases were accelerating access to diverse, cost-effective finance for flexibility-enabling technologies, and better evidencing the carbon impact of flexibility actions for ESG and corporate decarbonisation purposes.
- a decision on the UKRI Consumer-Led Flexibility Fund application is expected by 28 October 2026, however, the programme will continue in some form regardless of the outcome.
- a concern was raised that the project could lose its data-sharing focus if it tried to address every barrier to I&C participation.
- the group planned to meet quarterly, with the next meeting expected 21st January 2027.
It was discussed that:
- the draft problem statement prompted questions about whether the required data does not yet exist, or exists but is not reaching I&C businesses.
- the business case for flexibility could consider:
- the value of assets across different markets and the disruption involved in installing them;
- whether available revenue forecasts extend far enough to support investment decisions, although the appropriate forecast horizon remains open.
- further direct engagement with I&C end users could help establish what data they need. The commercial sector and geographically distributed businesses were identified as underserved.
- case studies were suggested to help I&C customers understand opportunities and potential revenue. Relevant ESG-reporting work and existing data-sharing standards were raised separately as possible areas to explore.
Next meeting: Thursday 21 January 2027
Formal records, including attendees, are maintained by the secretariat.
These are confidential to the Advisory Group Members.