Event Summary

The DF workshop opened by framing the shared challenge of integrating high volumes of renewable energy into increasingly complex power systems, particularly in the context of India’s rising cooling demand and the UK’s ongoing market evolution. The discussions highlighted the importance of building flexible, data-driven, and resilient grids supported by digital public infrastructure and strong coordination across regulators, utilities, academia, and industry.

Both India and the U.K.’s power sector structures and transitions were outlined, with India’s rapid demand growth and renewable expansion contrasted with the UK’s long-standing market reforms and shift away from coal. Across contexts, demand flexibility emerged as a critical tool for ensuring system stability, managing variability, and improving operational efficiency. The sessions on regulatory and market reforms focused on the frameworks shaping renewable integration and flexibility in India, including Resource Adequacy, updated grid codes, ancillary services, DF regulations, and emerging mechanisms such as capacity markets and centralised dispatch. Participants emphasised the need to understand consumer price elasticity, improve DISCOM financial health, and prioritise sectors like EV charging, buildings, and public water systems where flexibility potential is high. In parallel, deliberations on the UK market highlighted the current role and future potential of demand-side participation across wholesale markets, grid services, and capacity mechanisms, while identifying barriers in market design, settlement structures, and product rules that need to evolve to unlock greater flexibility.

The research sessions showcased advances in modelling, forecasting, and behavioural insights, including AI-driven optimisation of EV charging and heating loads, smart scheduling tools for electric buses, and demand flexibility model that integrates consumer responsiveness and techno-economic feasibility for utilities. The research findings also highlighted that flexibility must span generation, networks, storage, and demand, supported by transparent access to information on system imbalances and improved data-sharing standards.

Data science and digitalisation emerged as central themes, with sessions illustrating how smart meter data, SCADA systems, weather information, and market signals can revolutionise utility operations through digital twins, predictive maintenance, dynamic pricing, and enhanced forecasting. The importance of interoperability, regulatory clarity, and institutional readiness was highlighted, along with evolving digital public infrastructure such as Digital Energy Grid and India Energy Stack.

The cross-country panels including experts and regulators from India and the U.K. identified clear pathways for collaboration, including joint capacity-building programmes, dedicated pilots, common data standards, shared analytical tools, and a proposed UK–India Flexibility Forum. The key areas for joint study can include baseline methodologies, performance metrics, consumer incentives, and implementation frameworks. The concluding sessions reinforced the need for collaborative, evidence-driven solutions, regulatory innovation, and sustained engagement to enable resilient, consumer-centric power systems capable of supporting high renewable energy futures.