Energy data and digitalisation

We are facilitating industry coordination around data best practice to promote competition and transparency in the energy market, as well as lowering barriers to the innovation of new and better products and services. This involves:

• Developing regulatory data best practice
• Ensuring that regulations meet data best practice and facilitate as it delivers data-driven improvements for consumers
• Improving our own direct work digital and data work and so leading industry by example as the energy sector undergoes a cultural change.

Work we are already carrying out to meet these goals includes delivery of a modern digital infrastructure for exchanging data that is provided to us by industry or data shared by us with our external users. Our Data Exchange is now being tested with early adopters in the energy industry who provide data to us.

Call for Input for Data Best Practice - 7 September 2022

As part of our ongoing review into the Data Best Practice Guidance, and how it affects the use of data in the energy sector, we released a Call for Input. This was to help us understand how the Guidance is working as the number of parties obliged to follow the Guidance under their Licence conditions is expanded as part of the RIIO-ED2 price controls.

The Call for Input, published on 7 September 2022, seeks input from Stakeholders on:

• The effectiveness or otherwise of the Data Best Practice Guidance in achieving the objectives as set out.
• The changes which Ofgem is minded to make across the DBP Guidance.
• The proposed expansion of entities which will be obligated to abide by the DBP Guidance.

The Call for Input closes on 21 October 2022.

The independent Energy Data Taskforce, commissioned by the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (BEIS), Ofgem and Innovate UK, has made recommendations on digitising the national energy system to enable modern best practice use of data.

Working with the energy sector and data experts from other markets, the Taskforce has made five recommendations for how to make the most of data for the benefit of energy consumers. Overall, it urges digitisation of Britain’s energy system and openness when working with its data. Through this the energy system will deliver better services for consumers.

We welcome the Taskforce’s report and believe data plays a crucial role in enabling competition and innovation to drive down prices for customers and provide them with new products and services. We will be working with the Department for Energy Security and Net Zero, consumer groups and the industry to ensure that better use of data unlocks a brighter future for energy consumers.

View the Energy Data Taskforce Report

Data best practice is highly transferable between markets, and we encourage common data best practice across regulators. We are working with the UK Regulators Network’s, Data Strategy Workstream to help deliver data best practice consistently across markets. We believe this will enable wider British industry to deliver data-driven insight to meet consumers' overall needs from regulation across marketplaces.

Since data is used in all parts of the energy market, there is a huge amount of work to do to ensure it is used to best effect. We want modernisation to have an early impact, lowering bills through a reduced regulatory burden on industry and also through reduced barriers to innovation.

Our current understanding of the value of data is informing the changes we are already making to our organisation and regulation, and we are researching how improved use of data will potentially further help consumers.

We are adopting increasingly agile approaches to delivering our work, as encouraged in the government’s Industrial Strategy. This includes methods like working with the direct users of our data, improving data-driven policies throughout their development, and releasing lots of small changes to rules and working practices instead of single large ones. Additionally, we are seeking frequent feedback from users through formal public consultations and direct engagement with data users.

19th July 2022

Department for Business, Energy & Industrial Strategy, Ofgem and Innovate UK Statement on the Energy Digitalisation Taskforce Report

The Energy Digitalisation Taskforce was commissioned in May 2021 to continue the Government’s focus on modernising the energy system to unlock flexibility, drive clean growth towards net zero emissions by 2050 and to build momentum and deepen policy understanding about the energy sector’s journey to digitalisation. This was followed by the UK's first Energy Digitalisation Strategy report in July 2021. The Taskforce report - Delivering a Digitalised Energy System - represents a key milestone, building on the work of the Data Taskforce, and the recommendations form a critical launchpad for further action and exploratory work.

BEIS, Ofgem and Innovate UK have published their joint response to the Energy Digitalisation Taskforce’s report, highlighting progress and setting out next steps for future work.

17th January 2022

The Energy Digitalisation Taskforce published its final report on Monday 17 January 2022 which contains a number of recommendations on how the energy sector can further enhance its digital activities, including unlocking value of customers assets and action and embedding a digitalisation culture.

Need for change

Digitalisation is vital to ensure that the energy sector can meet its net zero targets by 2050. Achieving this goal will require millions of low-carbon technologies to be connected to the electricity system in the coming years, creating a more dynamic system than we have today. Digitalisation of data exchange is vital to ensure we can plan and manage the future energy system efficiently. Digitalisation, as highlighted in this report, presents the energy system with an opportunity to reduce its carbon footprint, provide new services to consumers, outline a route to net zero at lower overall costs and provides a significant growth opportunity for UK business.

Background

In 2019, the Energy Data Taskforce published five recommendations on how to improve the use of data across the energy sector, for example through maximising the value of data and improving the visibility of assets on the system. The Energy Digitalisation Taskforce (Energy Digitalisation Taskforce - Energy Systems Catapult) was then launched in May 2021 to continue the Government’s focus on modernising the energy system to unlock flexibility and drive clean growth towards net zero emissions by 2050. This was followed by the UK’s first Energy Digitalisation Strategy report in July 2021 (Published by BEIS, Ofgem and UKRI), which examines how energy system data is used so that the full potential of cutting-edge technologies can be realised in the UK, and consumers can gain maximum benefit from new digital products and services.

Next Steps

Over the coming months we will be considering the recommendations of the Energy Digitalisation Taskforce thoroughly and where necessary, look at implementation plans to bring the relevant initiatives to life. We would like to thank the Taskforce for their efforts in developing this report and the associated recommendations.