Utility Week

30 | JUNE 2023 | UTILITY WEEK Pan-utility Show report Utility Week Live highlights Record numbers of visitors attended Utility Week Live in Birmingham in May to hear expert speakers addressing the hottest topics across the sector. Here the Utility Week team highlights some of the key talking points. Ministers 'wilfully ignoring' public's role in net zero The government is afraid to broach the role of behaviour change in the decarbonisation journey because of the risk of sparking a "culture war", according to the head of the Climate Change Committee (CCC). At Utility Week Live Chris Stark shared his frustration that the government was "com- pletely unwilling" to engage with demand- side solutions and accused it of ducking the issue in recent policy papers. The CCC chief executive said: "You see that in the approach to transport. Last time they produced a Net Zero Strategy they said quite a lot about transport. This time they've been forced by the courts to publish more detail on what they're actually planning to do on transport and they walked away from all that because it's culture wars. You see the same thing in diet, aviation, etc. That makes everything harder and I also don't think it's where people are." Stark praised initiatives such as last win- ter's demand flexibility service (DFS) for engaging the public on the energy transition. In a separate session, National Grid Electricity System Operator (ESO) executive director Fintan Slye said he saw the recent trials as a "stepping stone" to a full commer- cial product, possibly for winter 2024/25. The DFS ran as a series of tests between November and April, with customers receiv- ing money off their bills for shi—ing demand outside peak hours. It was also used in two live events to ease tight supply margins. Around 1.6 million households and busi- nesses took part over the winter, saving 3.3GWh of electricity. Slye said the success of the scheme showed there was an appetite in society to engage with demand flexibility, despite pre- vious scepticism that this really existed. He said: "We're looking to build on that now for next year. We don't want it to just be a product for an emergency situation. We want to leverage that take-up and interest we had from the various supply companies and customers and build on it to see how we could make it into a normal part of the prod- uct suite we have. "This winter will probably be a stepping stone into that and then the winter a—er will be about getting the full commercial product out there. We're still working through that with various companies at the moment." The ESO is currently undertaking a review of the DFS to gauge its future role, with the results due to be published in the summer. Speaking separately at Utility Week Live, Ofgem chief executive Jonathan Brearley said he was "pleasantly surprised" by the uptake of the DFS across the 22 winter ses- sions, saying it showed the public was open to changing their behaviour. However, he said: "The biggest blocker is that we are being unrealistic if we are expect- ing people to massively adapt their lifestyles to make the changes we want. "Until we find the technological and tar- iff solutions to make all of this simple, it will always be a niche service for a niche set of customers who are already interested." It was a point Slye had already addressed in his panel session, saying: "Technology will play a huge part in terms of making it seamless in people's lives. People are not going to run around their houses turning off their lights long term. Those apps will emerge and technology will help us there and will mean people's lifestyles aren't affected by this." DWP open to sharing data with utilities Civil servants have indicated a willingness to share data on vulnerable customers with the utilities sector, Ofgem's chief executive told Utility Week Live. Brearley was addressing the slow pro- gress in sharing such data across the indus- try to date. He welcomed recent moves by electricity and water companies to bring the dream of a shared Priority Services Register (PSR) closer to reality but said real progress would only come from better interaction with government and councils. This is a key plank of Utility Week's Action on Bills campaign, which calls on government to use the levers at its disposal to open up data on vulnerable customers to utilities. Officials from the Department for Work and Pensions have told Brearley there is a data system set up "that is accessible and is something we can potentially work with", he said. He added: "I'm genuinely optimistic that we can go from what has been quite an incremental set of changes to something that is more fundamental." Brearley also talked about the need for a social tariff, reiterating his support for the idea to be explored but insisting it was vital poorer customers were not excluded from tariff competition as it re-emerges. He said: "Vulnerability is a very diverse description and the assumption that some- how vulnerable customers won't want to be flexible, that they won't want to access the best deals, is wrong. I'd like to see a social tariff done in a way that allows vulner- able customers to get all the benefits of this new system." Asked whether it was possible to get tar-

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