Day 4

As electricity systems shift towards higher levels of wind and solar power, energy storage and grid-flexibility solutions are now essential for maintaining system reliability. Battery Energy Storage Systems (BESS) are rapidly becoming the most widespread flexibility resource worldwide, offering responses in less than a second, absorbing excess generation, easing congestion, and aiding stable operation during rapid changes in renewable energy. Their capacity to operate across wholesale, balancing, and local markets makes them a highly adaptable component of modern power systems.

Beyond batteries, grid flexibility includes a broader range of tools: demand response, next-generation power-electronics interfaces, digital optimisation, and flexible interconnector operations. Collectively, these methods enable systems to handle variability, decrease curtailment, and postpone expensive network upgrades.

This session will explore the changing regulatory frameworks, market structures, and operational methods that influence how flex resources are deployed. Using international examples, it will showcase strategies that accelerate storage integration, streamline connection procedures, and expand revenue across diverse service markets. By examining how market access, system requirements, and regulatory clarity interact, the session aims to offer practical insights for regulators and system operators as they advance in the clean-energy transition

While recognizing that energy integration is significant to market optimization, security of supply and grid flexibility, in many regions, decentralized production is also a critical enabler of universal access to energy.
By generating electricity close to the point of consumption, we can skip large transmission lines investments, especially in remote or underserved areas where population density is low. In turn, we can enhance energy security by diversifying supply sources, improving system resilience, and enabling faster recovery from outages caused by natural disasters, technical failures, or geopolitical tensions.
Mini-grids and stand-alone systems offer flexible, scalable, and often more affordable alternatives that can electrify communities more quickly and sustainably.
Also, decentralized production of biogas and other innovative energy sources can promote innovation, while avoiding slow and costly grid extension. Decentralized and small-scale energy production solutions can reduce reliance on fuels or firewood, improve reliability, and create opportunities for local economic development. In addition, they offer the opportunity for efficiency and economic circularity with the agriculture or waste sectors.
Decentralized energy models can also shift the role of consumers from passive users to active participants in the energy system. Through options such as prosumer generation, energy communities, and the like, individuals and communities gain greater control over their energy choices and spending. This empowerment fosters greater transparency, encourages energy efficiency, and strengthens public engagement in the transition to clean energy.
In this panel, we will discuss decentralized production: innovative solutions, opportunities and the potential to reshape power systems, mobility, communities and energy access.

As the energy transition accelerates, energy systems around the world are experiencing increasing consumer growth. Electrification, technology including the adoption of consumer energy resources (CER) such as rooftop solar and home batteries, economic activity such as investment in data centres and climate change are all contributing factors.  This increased growth poses significant opportunities and challenges for the energy system: offering opportunities for a more flexible and lower-carbon energy system, while also changing wholesale market dynamics, challenging system security and putting upward pressure on electricity prices. What regulatory, market and technical enablers and policies are required to set us up for success in this next generation of consumer growth? What are successful examples of policy or market design seeking to address these issues, and what can we learn from them? How can regulators strike the right balance between enabling the benefits these can provide, while protecting consumers from the challenges?