The demand flexibility scheme may boost headlines, but not the power grid

For example, the recently announced ‘Demand Flexibility Scheme’ incentivises households to rely more on energy derived from home solar panels or heat pumps, in order to lower their bills in the face of rising summer bills.

But whilst this sounds like an attractive proposal, many experts in the industry have criticised its myopic parameters.

Already the increase in Distributed Energy Resources (DER) like heat pumps and solar panels means that, without grid-edge technologies to monitor the peak loads at the Low Voltage (LV) level, households are at risk of power trips.

The grid was never designed for a two-way power flow that we’re now seeing with households becoming ‘prosumers’, feeding renewable energy back to the grid.

And already the grid is challenged at the High Voltage (HV) level with the volume of renewable energy generated. In 2025 alone, £1,467,023,332 was spent on curtailment.

But investing in grid-edge technologies and battery energy storage is a difficult story to land with the general public. Big steps are being made in the direction of domestic renewable energy, but these initiatives are rarely communicated as part of a bigger, more complex picture.

The path to Net Zero, moving away from fossil fuels, is often over-simplified as simply fitting homes with solar panels. For example, the new Future Homes Standard means that by 2028 developers will be required to install solar panels and heat pumps in all new homes in England.

But this is an understandable tactic when we consider that communities are already facing growing pains from the energy transition. It’s only recently that DER has become commoditised enough for those at the start of the property ladder to benefit from domestic renewable energy.

And meanwhile the developments of battery energy storage sites (BESS) are too often communicated as a planning notice, rather than an invitation to participate in the design and development of critical national infrastructure that they will ultimately benefit from.

In tandem, with communities quite rightly concerned for the ecological and environmental impact of BESS developments, information voids are too often filled with misinformation. For example, some of the most common myths include safety fears over fires and other emergency situations.

But in the US alone, while energy storage deployments grew 18-fold between 2017 and 2022, battery storage failure incidents actually decreased by 97% between 2018 and 2023, according to EPRI research. But if BESS developers fail to place communities at the heart of all comms, this confrontational stance along with misinformation will prevail.

The reality is that until BESS developers position communications and public perception at the heart of their commercial strategies, the barriers they face to get spades in the ground will prevail.

And meanwhile, the government will continue to look for quick wins to land with the public, to assuage consumers’ concerns in the face of soaring energy bills.

But the Demand Flexibility Scheme risks being another short-lived PR win for renewables, because it could eventually exacerbate issues at the LV level.

Not only have energy experts already forewarned that bills might rise again as a result, but public trust in Net Zero would once again take a hit.

The energy crisis grossly highlights how problematic the nation’s reliance on fossil fuels is on both energy sovereignty and household energy bills - and how urgently the UK needs to better harness renewable energy already being generated.

Arguably there has never been a time where the role of BESS is more important, or urgently required. Whilst the government is focused on incentivising consumer behaviour, this is an opportunity for leaders in the battery storage industry to galvanise interest, corral support, clarify and educate.

Consumers are a driving force in the energy transition and leaders in the energy industry must make them the main character of the energy transition. The investment of public support in new projects arguably plays as vital a role as financial investment.

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Roxanne Kingsman is a Senior Director at Spreckley

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