Our new energy network that is already lowering bills

How can we make energy affordable as the UK goes through a transformational energy transition?

As we increasingly electrify our homes, transport and economy, one answer has been: generate more power, strengthen the grid and build a bigger energy system capable of meeting ever-higher peaks in demand.

Some of that investment will be essential.

But there is another part of the answer already sitting in millions of streets across Britain – our homes.

Traditionally, the relationship between households and the energy system has been almost entirely one-way.

Electricity is generated, transported across the network and consumed when people need it.

The grid has therefore had to be designed around the moments when demand is at its highest – even though those peaks represent only a fraction of the day.

New energy gives us the opportunity to change and improve that relationship, giving people more control over their energy.

A home – like the one pictured above – equipped with battery storage, smart technology and the right energy tariff does not simply consume electricity.

It can store power when renewable generation is plentiful and electricity is cheaper, then use that energy later when demand – and pressure on the grid – is higher.

Multiply that capability across millions of properties and something important happens: homes start becoming an important part of Britain's energy infrastructure.

This is vital as one of the great challenges of the energy transition is not simply producing enough clean electricity.

It is also about making the entire system work more intelligently – and doing so in a way that reduces costs rather than asking customers to carry an ever-growing infrastructure bill.

We can already see what that future could look like.

E.ON’s work in Coventry has demonstrated battery storage combined with time-of-use tariffs can save participating households an average of £250 a year.

In Glasgow, working with Glasgow City Council and The Wise Group as part of the city's Child Poverty programme, we are taking that thinking directly to families experiencing acute affordability pressures.

The programme combines free home batteries with energy-efficiency improvements, debt support and tailored assistance.

We estimate battery technology alone could reduce participating households' electricity costs by up to 30%.

Flexibility should not become another advantage reserved for people who can afford to buy an electric vehicle, install solar panels or invest thousands of pounds in new technology.

It should become part of the energy system available to everyone.

That is what we mean when we talk about democratising flexibility.

Done properly, smarter energy can achieve two objectives that have too often been treated separately – making energy more affordable for individual households while making the national system more efficient.

A battery installed in a home can help a family buy and store electricity when it is cheaper.

At the same time, thousands – and potentially millions – of batteries responding intelligently to supply, demand and price can reduce pressure on local networks at precisely the moments when that pressure is greatest.

The result is not simply a lower bill – it is potentially a lower-cost energy system.

And that distinction is crucial.

Britain is entering a period in which enormous investment in electricity infrastructure will be required.

But alongside the question of how much new infrastructure Britain needs to build, we should be asking an equally important question: how much can we use the infrastructure we already have more intelligently?

For E.ON, that means looking beyond individual technologies and towards an integrated energy system.

It looks like solar generation, battery storage, smart tariffs, heat pumps, electric vehicle charging, automated home energy management, local generation and flexibility markets.

Their real potential emerges when they stop operating as individual products and start working together.

At Avalon Grove in Worcestershire – pictured below – our Lower Bills, Built In model combines rooftop solar, battery storage and smart energy management within the homes themselves.

The technology automatically determines when electricity should be generated, stored or consumed, helping residents make greater use of their own renewable power and reducing their exposure to volatile energy prices.

Integrated solutions of this kind can cut household energy costs by as much as half in some circumstances.

This is the direction in which the energy transition now needs to travel – away from asking customers to become energy experts and towards creating technology that quietly does the complicated work for them.

Because complexity is itself a barrier to affordability.

The energy transition will not work for everyone if participating in it requires significant capital, technical knowledge and the time to constantly monitor prices and consumption.

The smarter system is one in which flexibility increasingly happens automatically – buying, storing and using electricity at the right moments without requiring families to organise their lives around the grid.

There is a compelling economic argument for that approach.

There is also a social one.

As Chris Norbury, CEO of E.ON UK – pictured below – stated in our recent Purpose Coalition report: “For E.ON, the clean energy transition is not simply about technology. It is about people. It is about helping customers reduce bills, supporting those in vulnerable circumstances, giving households greater control over their energy, and ensuring that the benefits of cleaner energy are shared as widely as possible.”

Over the past three years, we have provided more than £200million in targeted support to vulnerable customers.

That immediate assistance remains essential.

But we also have to address the structural reasons energy costs what it does.

That means moving from helping people cope with high bills towards designing an energy system capable of delivering permanently better outcomes.

The technologies now exist to build an energy system that can be cleaner, more secure and more affordable at the same time.

The challenge is making them simple enough, accessible enough and scalable enough to reach millions of households.

Policy and regulation have a critical role to play.

We need a framework that encourages innovation rather than placing unnecessary barriers in its way.

And we need one that makes batteries and automated flexibility viable at mass-market scale – and that recognises the value households can provide to the wider energy system.

Because a home capable of storing electricity is not simply a customer at the end of a wire. It is an energy asset.

A neighbourhood of those homes is a huge source of flexibility.

Millions of them could become a distributed national resource capable of lowering bills, absorbing renewable electricity and reducing pressure on the infrastructure beneath our streets.

Britain will unquestionably need to build for its energy future.

But the smartest investment will not always be another cable, another substation or another piece of conventional network infrastructure.

Sometimes it will be a battery in somebody’s home.

And if we can put that technology within reach of millions rather than thousands, the cheapest new energy network Britain builds could ultimately be the one it doesn't have to build.

Find out more about how we are placing long-term affordability and social impact at the core of the UK's clean energy transition by reading our new Purpose Coalition report here.