The UK government has updated its Clean Flexibility Roadmap, introducing a new package of measures to accelerate the deployment of energy storage, consumer-led flexibility, hydrogen-to-power and electricity interconnections as part of its strategy to support higher shares of renewable energy and deliver a decarbonised power system.

Published on 13 July, the update shifts the focus from planning to implementation, introducing new regulatory and legislative commitments aimed at enabling consumers, network operators and emerging technologies to play a greater role in electricity markets. It also establishes a new set of performance metrics to track progress on power system flexibility, which the government considers essential to achieving clean power by 2030 and net zero by 2050.

Among the key developments, the government highlighted that the UK ended 2025 with 7.5 GW of grid-scale battery storage capacity, following a record 2.3 GW commissioned during the year, maintaining its position as Europe's largest battery storage market. At the same time, regulator Ofgem backed 7.6 GW of new Long Duration Electricity Storage (LDES) projects, representing 137 GWh of storage capacity, through its cap-and-floor investment support scheme. The portfolio includes pumped hydro storage, lithium-ion batteries, a vanadium redox flow battery and a compressed air energy storage project, marking the UK's first major investment in long-duration storage in more than four decades.

The roadmap also introduces new measures to expand consumer-led flexibility. The government will assess the feasibility of linking public support for low-carbon technologies—including solar PV, batteries and heat pumps—to the use of flexible electricity tariffs, while allowing consumers to opt out. It also plans to introduce legislation to remove certain electricity levies for demand turn-up services, encouraging consumers to increase electricity consumption during periods of abundant renewable generation that would otherwise be curtailed due to network constraints.

Meanwhile, Ofgem will adapt its regulatory framework to support new flexibility business models, while the National Energy System Operator (NESO) will further integrate demand-side flexibility and energy storage into electricity market reforms. This includes developing new tools to facilitate the participation of aggregators, virtual power plants and distributed energy resources in electricity markets.

The update also strengthens the role of hydrogen in the future electricity system. The government announced it will introduce primary legislation to implement the Hydrogen to Power (H2P) business model, providing greater certainty for investors and supporting the development of hydrogen-fired power plants. According to the roadmap, hydrogen will play a strategic role beyond 2030 by providing dispatchable low-carbon generation during extended periods of low wind and solar output, complementing both short- and long-duration energy storage. The government will also continue assessing the participation of hydrogen-to-power projects in the UK's Capacity Market.

Beyond storage and hydrogen, the updated roadmap outlines additional actions to strengthen electricity interconnections, carbon capture and storage (CCUS) and biomethane, technologies that the government considers essential to improving system flexibility, maintaining security of supply and supporting the continued expansion of renewable energy across the UK electricity system.