Britain has moved millions of smart meters onto half-hourly settlement, expanded battery storage and secured 170MW of new business-led flexibility in the year since the government published its Clean Flexibility Roadmap.
The July 2026 update tracks progress against the original plan from DESNZ, Ofgem and NESO to create a more flexible electricity system that can balance rising renewable generation. NESO modelling suggests clean flexibility capacity could increase eightfold between 2024 and 2050.
Flexibility covers everything from households using electricity at cheaper times to grid-scale batteries, interconnectors, hydrogen generation and power stations fitted with carbon capture. The principle is to shift demand or supply when the system needs it and reduce the amount spent managing constraints or building infrastructure used only during peak periods.
Smart meter migration
One of the clearest achievements has been the transition to Market-wide Half-Hourly Settlement. More than 11.3 million smart meters had been migrated by mid-June 2026 with a third of Britain’s electricity meters now operating under the new arrangements.
The programme remains on course to migrate all meters by May 2027. Half-hourly data should allow suppliers to offer more time-of-use tariffs that reward households for running appliances, charging cars or heating homes when electricity is plentiful and cheaper.
The government has also published its £15 billion Warm Homes Plan which aims to upgrade five million homes with heat pumps, solar panels and batteries by 2030. Up to one million families are expected to be lifted out of fuel poverty.
Storage
Grid-scale battery storage power capacity reached 7.5GW in 2025 after a record 2.3GW was energised during the year. Britain continues to have the largest grid-scale battery capacity in Europe.
The biggest storage announcement came in June when Ofgem backed cap and floor support for 7.6GW of long duration electricity storage across 16 projects. Together they represent 137GWh of capacity using pumped hydro, lithium-ion batteries, compressed air storage and a vanadium flow battery.
Final decisions are expected by autumn 2026 with the programme intended to restart construction of long duration storage for the first time in more than 40 years. However the projects must still secure investment, complete construction and connect to the grid before that capacity is available.
NESO has met its first annual target for industrial and commercial flexibility with 170MW now dispatchable through its markets. It has set a target of 750MW by 2030 and identified more than 140 business leads during 2026 following more than 550 industry engagements.
Progress has also been made on reducing the rate at which flexible assets are overlooked when the electricity system needs action. Average skip rates across all technologies were nine percentage points lower during the first half of 2026 than a year earlier.
Battery skip rates fell from 49% to 38% while pumped storage dropped from 59% to 49%. Load response has not achieved the same improvement and NESO is examining what further changes are required.
Curtailment
The roadmap has also targeted the growing cost of paying wind farms to switch off when network capacity cannot carry their electricity. A trial worth up to £20 million will test whether removing final consumption levies can encourage homes and businesses to use more power during constrained periods.
The 18-month trial will begin in winter 2026 and run across two winters. It could open the way for consumers to access surplus renewable electricity at a reduced cost or potentially for free.
A further £74 million has been committed by UKRI to consumer-led flexibility innovation with a target of unlocking at least 2GW by 2030. This includes a £25 million competition for artificial intelligence and digital systems with successful projects expected to begin in January 2027.
Interconnector capacity has reached 10.3GW against the government’s 12GW to 14GW ambition for 2030. The 1.4GW NeuConnect link with Germany is due to begin operating in 2028 while more than 6GW of additional projects already have regulatory approval in Britain.
New technologies
Progress elsewhere remains at an earlier stage. The government has advanced hydrogen network rules, supported hydrogen production projects and completed a trial blending 2% green hydrogen into gas used to generate electricity at Centrica’s Brigg Power Station.
Work on power generation with carbon capture has included development spending decisions for the Acorn and Viking clusters, expansion of the East Coast Cluster and the launch of a non-pipeline transport competition. A government response on supporting non-pipeline carbon transport is due in 2027.
Not every original milestone has been met. Work to calculate the system value of consumer-led flexibility has been delayed until the second quarter of 2027 following changes to DESNZ modelling tools.
DESNZ is due to confirm a full set of performance measures by the end of 2026. Publication of the first available metrics is expected to begin in autumn 2026 with quarterly updates planned wherever possible.
Copyright © 2026 Energy Live News LtdELN