We are on the edge of an energy revolution. ‘Revolution’ because we don’t fully know how it will pan out, we don’t really know how things will look in 10 or 20 years’ time.

Change is being driven by the need to meet a 2050 zero-carbon climate target. It is being facilitated by innovation in electronics. 

• Generation technologies are developing rapidly, becoming vastly more efficient.
• Storage will soon be de rigeur for uses other than electric cars.
• White goods are starting to be able to ‘talk’ to electronic devices, becoming part of a single system that can be managed nodally.
• Soon everyone (every business, every domestic consumer) will be able to sell unused power through ‘demand-side response’ sales.

These are just some of the things that are now with us or will be with us shortly.

Developments in electronics are the other part of the revolution, enabling a key feature to be introduced into the whole system, flexibility. Much of what will happen over the next 2-3 years will be facilitated by the development of and refinement of different kinds of flexibility, via flexibility platforms and flexibility devices. It is flexibility that will bring about virtual local networks, that will enable peer-to-peer sales, that will keep down the need for new generation plant and, ultimately, keep down costs.

The 2050 target involves electrification of the UK, with or without the use of hydrogen as a heating fuel. It also depends on much, much more renewable power. We think we know what that renewable power will look like. I predict that we don’t, that the changes we’re seeing in current technologies will be outstripped by new technologies.

One huge change has happened that sets this all in context. There is no longer any possibility of talking about energy without also talking about climate change. The future for energy just is dealing with climate change.

The practice offers legal services for energy and new technology, regulation and a wide range of commercial contracts.

Clients include governments, large corporations, housing associations and very small enterprises, such as new energy sector market entrants.

Sally works in several ways:

• ‘one-off’ advice to law firms and companies, in regulatory or energy matters;
• arm’s length lawyer to an energy project, perhaps as a complement to a law firm dealing with other aspects of the project (often substantially sized one or multiple projects);
• more closely with project developers, both in the UK and overseas, either at arms’ length or as part of a team whose rewards come when the project is sold or operational.