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NETWORK / 18 / OCTOBER 2017 Q: As someone who has spent time working for BP and in the energy industry, how do you view the current pace of change in the UK sector? Philip New: I think the pace of change globally is accelerating – and more rapidly than most of us would have predicted two or three years ago. Q: Why is that? PN: I think there is a funda- mental dynamic: the costs of delivering new technologies, whether that is battery electric vehicles, storage of energy, and, increasingly, the generation of electricity from renewables, are coming down very, very fast. Q: Why is a whole systems energy approach particularly important now? PN: If individual technologies are coming down in cost, and appetite for adoption is grow- ing, if we can't effectively inte- grate these new technologies into the system, that becomes the biggest single barrier to the energy transformation we are looking for. It does feel increas- ingly clear that new technolo- gies but also new social trends are changing the paradigm, and forcing us away from relatively siloed, relatively vertically inte- grated top-down energy vector structures, into things that are much more interdependent. It is not only across individual siloes, but brings into play different forces, whether is it digital in all of its guises, or the growing appetite for control by individuals and communities. Q: In its next phase, what might we reasonably expect the Future Power Systems project to achieve? PN: The first thing we will seek to do in the next phase of FPSA is to develop the Enabling Frameworks concept proposed in phase two. Enabling Frame- works provide an approach to coordinating the stakeholders and effort needed to overcome barriers to the implementation of functions that support trans- formation of the power system. As part of the development process we will validate the Enabling Framework approach against a substantial use case. This should enable us to provide the assurance that the approach is well-founded and should, in turn, allow us to progress to a real world operational demon- stration in later phases. The second thing we want to achieve is to establish a port- folio of innovation projects. In earlier work we identified a set of R&D and innovation require- ments that must be addressed as we look into the future of the power system. We are actively working to understand how best to engage with the innova- tion community – including academia, the industry and businesses of all sizes – to deploy the creativity and effort needed to develop and deliver capability on a timely basis. But perhaps the most impor- tant thing that we would like to achieve is to engage with the industry in the debate about how best to respond to the challenges and opportunities in power system transformation. We will seek to work closely with stakeholders across the sector, and, in particular, with other key initiatives with similar objectives. Q: What should the second phase of the Smart Sys- tems and Heat Programme achieve? PN: The second phase of the Smart Systems and Heat Pro- gramme is another step on the journey to the decarbonisation of residential heat. It will help us deepen our understanding of how people experience and value warmth and comfort in their homes. This understanding will inform the development of value propositions that energy services providers could offer to their cus- tomers and enable them to create interesting new business models and markets. The journey will not be complete in the second phase, but it will help build a substantial capability that will allow these value propositions and business models to be tested and evalu- ated; an important aspect of this will be establishing a 'living lab' where this testing and evaluation can occur. All of this seeks to help new and established players in the section discover how 'heat as a service' can be delivered to pro- vide customers the best possible CATAPULT CENTRE + INSIGHT New ideas for energy Philip New, chief executive of the Energy Systems Catapult, explains how its work is impacting on a rapidly changing landscape for the sector.