Citizens Advice response to ENA Open Networks Future Worlds consultation

Citizens Advice response to ENA Open Networks Future Worlds consultation [ 220 kb]

Citizens Advice welcomes the opportunity to respond to this consultation as part of its statutory role to represent domestic and small business energy consumers in Great Britain.

We have previously contributed to the Open Networks project through responding to the Commercial Principles consultation, the September 2018 Open Networks: Future Worlds consultation, and via our membership on the Open Networks Advisory Group.

Deploying flexibility technologies is a key driver to reducing costs for consumers as well as to ensure that emissions that are contributing to climate change are minimised. Consumers are estimated to financially benefit by between £17bn to 40bn by 2050 from the deployment of flexibility technologies. These savings will be generated through the avoidance of capital investment in electricity system infrastructure and generation. Consumers may also benefit directly through being able to earn money by selling their energy-use flexibility to the electricity network.

In addition to responding to the consultation questions, we have also provided comments on the consumer considerations and design features we would expect to see incorporated within any “Future World”. We have not recommended a particular Future World model given the uncertainties as to costs and benefits at this stage. However, we have made a series of recommendations to ensure that consumers are at the heart of decision-making in this process.