Using energy system data to benefit consumers: our response to the Energy Data Taskforce recommendations
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Today the Energy Data Taskforce outlined three enabling recommendations to support best use of data and modernise the national energy system's services. These three enablers support delivery of two overarching Taskforce recommendations:
- Digitising Britain’s energy system
- Openness and transparency when working with data.
We welcome the Taskforce’s report and believe data plays a crucial role in enabling competition and innovation to drive down prices for customers and provide them with new products and services. We will be working with the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (BEIS), consumer groups and the industry to ensure that better use of data unlocks a brighter future for energy consumers. We’re starting our response to the recommendations by getting ready for the first of the enabling recommendations, the Data Catalogue.
Creating a data catalogue
The Taskforce has recommended the creation of a Data Catalogue that will describe all data sets in Great Britain’s energy system. The descriptive information that will make up the Data Catalogue is called ‘metadata’. This is a valuable asset to the energy industry and to innovators, who currently struggle to understand the energy system. Access to this information will make it easier for industry to develop new products and services that benefit consumers.
To begin supporting this, we are today publishing a first piece of metadata. This first metadata describes the data we use to help us make our decisions about the RIIO-ED1 price control. More specifically, this relates to the ‘exceptional events’ part of the Interruptions Incentive Scheme.
When the Data Catalogue is available, we will add this and other metadata to it. From now on we will publish more metadata describing the other data sets we collect.
We are glad about the Taskforce recommendation to embed an agile delivery approach. We believe this is the best way to ensure our work is value for money. It also aligns to the government’s Industrial Strategy, meaning our work will be coordinated with other regulators. We will deliver our data work in small chunks, such as the metadata file we have published today. This will allow us to get feedback early and understand what is valued by our data users and what isn’t, rather than rolling out huge projects and only getting feedback at the end.
Learn more about our approach to data.