In this week's episode, Jon Slowe explores how incumbent energy retailers are navigating the energy transition, moving away from focusing only on selling kWh, and becoming more agile and customer centric. He is talking to Arjan Van Der Eijk, who is currently CEO of Innogy eMobility Solutions. Before that, he worked for several years in the retail businesses of Essent in the Netherlands and Innogy in Germany and beyond.

Listen to the podcast on our website or on your favourite podcast provider.

Most of us take for granted that we can have warm homes and hot water when we want them. Today around 90% of the UK’s 29 million homes rely directly on unabated fossil fuels to provide this, making a significant contribution to the UK’s greenhouse gas emissions.
 
Meeting our net zero target will require radical change from the status quo on home comfort – both at the individual building level, and the energy system level. But how “best” to decarbonise heat is a complex area, with no ‘one-size-fits-all’ solution. Electric heating technologies – including heat pumps – are one potential solution, but the UK lags behind many other countries in making the move to high-efficiency electric heating.
 
At the same time, the retail energy market in the UK – as elsewhere - is being transformed by three mega trends:-

• The move from product & commodity sales, to selling services
• The opportunities being unlocked by data & digitalisation
• The growing need for flexibility, across the energy system.

In this talk, Cate Lyon, Senior Analyst, will present Delta-EE’s views on the current UK heating market, what developments we can expect to see next in how we heat and cool our homes, and how the wider changes happening in the energy system are increasingly influencing what will happen with heat.

Register for the event and join the webinar.

By analysing an off-gas grid area in Skye and extrapolating to off-gas grid Scotland, 4D Heat explores the ability of heat flexibility to absorb wind power that would otherwise have been curtailed due to England-Scotland transmission constraints. 4D Heat takes a whole system view and all optimisation and analyses were subject to the constraint of not increasing costs to the Electricity System Operator, Distribution Grid Operator or end consumer. The project identified that up to 540GWh (9%) of otherwise curtailed wind could be used by domestic heating across off-gas grid Scotland in 2030, saving £24m per year in wind constraint payments and delivering a further £2m per year in environmental and social benefits.

Matthew Myers, Senior Analyst, will present on the topic at the Energy Networks Innovation Conference (ENIC), taking place on 8th-9th December 2020.

The 4D Heat project publishes its findings, identifying that up to 540GWh of energy generated by wind could be absorbed by domestic heating across off-gas grid Scotland in 2030, saving £24m per year in wind constraint payments and delivering a further £2m per year in environmental and social benefits. The research, modelling and analysis were carried out by Delta-EE, Everoze and PassivSystems.

Find out more on the SSEN website.

The New Energy France Research Service has published its France Regulations Database.

This database provides:

• A long list of all the relevant energy transition policies and regulations
• The topics covered include climate targets, heating, flexibility, EV chargepoints, energy communities, self-consumption, buildings and more
• Details on which companies are impacted (e.g. customers, DSOs, TSOs, energy suppliers etc.)
• Our views on the likely impacts or the objectives of the regulators

Find out more about our France-based research today.

Energy communities have the potential to transform customer attitudes and the way they engage with the energy system. Peer to peer energy trading models, facilitated by blockchain are also challenging the status quo, while collective self-consumption is stimulating growth of energy communities across Europe. What would it take from energy suppliers to adapt to this new market paradigm?

A recent webinar from the Local Energy Systems research team explored:

• How enthusiastic are consumers about investing in energy communities?
• What business models are emerging?
• How will this impact the existing energy supply industry?

The recording can be watched on Youtube, and the slides can be downloaded here.