The Government has the difficult task of balancing electrification and decarbonisation pathways with other national objectives in the October Budget. Ongoing global conflict and consequent fossil fuel price volatility has made a hard financial predicament even harder.

But unlocking vital energy system data could harmonise our national goals: creating opportunities to maximise our clean power achievements and turn them into a vehicle for economic growth, AI innovation and lower bills - at minimal cost to the Treasury.

We need to invest significantly in building new grid infrastructure to meet the needs of our evolving energy system. But even with existing infrastructure, we can make more of what we have already achieved in generating clean power, by building a smarter system. Both of these pathways can be enhanced with quicker action on regulation to make sure the right data is in the hands of the right organisations.

NESO is a public entity responsible for balancing energy supply and demand. Currently, limited visibility of generation means that they are operating with one hand tied behind their back, incurring unnecessary costs. When our national grid operator is funded directly through consumer bills, any cost saving trickles directly to households. Open Climate Fix’s solar forecast, used by NESO, demonstrates that better visibility translates to cost savings; our partnership generates over £30m in savings per year which could rise to £150m by 2030. With better data on where and when small-scale solar and wind sites are generating electricity, NESO, Open Climate Fix and other innovators would be even better equipped to bring costs down and manage the grid securely.

GB Grid is being designed to ensure that infrastructure is planned and built where it is needed the most. The Government will hope that the public entity can tackle the connections queue challenge by sparking competition in the infrastructure buildout, connecting more of our clean power to the electricity grid. But the available data that helps to plan connections appropriately is limited. To be competitive with private investment and make sure work is targeted where it can deliver the most value, GB Grid will need access to high-quality data on spare network capacity and forecasted future demand - at DNO level, or even more granular.

The UK has a substantial and rapidly growing AI sector. With the right policy and regulation, we can lead globally on both clean energy and AI. The latest UK Government AI Sector Study estimated that the UK had more than 5,800 AI companies in 2024, up 85% in two years. The same study said that the sector generates £23.9bn in revenue. In the energy system, there are a multitude of cases where AI can be used positively to meet emergent challenges and deliver public value, and it is crucial that help innovators to overcome the barriers they face.

Effective AI deployment in clean energy relies on good data. Information is valuable for the small and scaling businesses that will create the solutions to grid challenges in years to come. Improving access to smart meter data, behind the meter data, generation data, location of distributed energy resources and other priorities will remove many of the constraints that innovators currently face in building and implementing solutions - accelerating the energy transition and powering sustainable growth.

The energy smart data legislative framework sets an exciting precedent for what is possible with more freely flowing consumer data. Prior to the assent of the Data Use and Access Bill, a report by the Start Up Coalition and Tony Blair Institute outlined the £27.8bn economic opportunity of expanding Smart Data in key sectors. Now, this is one step closer to reality.

Energy bills are a deciding voting factor for millions of UK citizens. The Government can bring bills down by acting decisively on improving access to consumer data such as smart meter data. One route to this is helping consumers to more easily compare energy tariffs, both enabling the maximisation of savings through flexible energy use and incentivising healthy market competition to develop the most attractive tariff options.

More widely, a better run energy system will incur lower unnecessary costs. Curtailment and constraints come at a steep price to the UK public as expensive fossil fuel reserves are fired up. The better we can plan for changes in the weather, energy generation and energy demand - as close to the second as possible - the less wasteful the system will be. In the future, this will translate into lower energy bills, as we make better use of cheap renewables and reduce our need to default to expensive gas.

The data sharing infrastructure and regulatory landscape for a more open, flexible and consumer-led UK energy system is being built as we speak. But rapid work to prioritise and act is needed for these developments to lead to material change for UK households before the next election. In the wake of the October Budget, the short term wins will be as important as the long term strategy in gaining the trust of the UK public. Rapidly identifying some priority energy datasets and making them accessible to grid operators and energy innovators will move us closer towards a stable, secure and low-cost energy system in the future.