Answer extracted from the The Future of Utilities Podcast — listen to the full episode below.
What barriers exist for consumers and businesses to participate in flexibility markets?
The main obstacle is significant complexity in the market and industry structure that makes participation appear daunting from an outsider's perspective. NISO is actively working to simplify this complexity and remove operational barriers, aiming to make flexibility participation as straightforward as possible while accounting for the business realities that consumers and organizations face.
Complexity as the core barrier
Flexibility markets operate within intricate regulatory and technical frameworks that can overwhelm potential participants. The rules, settlement mechanisms, and technical requirements create a significant entry cost—not just financially, but in terms of understanding and operational overhead.
As Jonathan Wisdom explains in the episode, the goal is to make engagement feel accessible rather than prohibitive, especially for small and medium-sized participants who lack dedicated energy market expertise.
NISO's Power Responsive approach: simplification as strategy
Power Responsive, NISO's program that has been active for around 10 to 11 years, is evolving specifically to address these barriers. The program now focuses directly on engaging consumers and helping them bring their flexibility to market in a more seamless way than ever before.
The program's mission is grounded in a practical principle: participation should align with each participant's operational realities. This means designing pathways that don't force consumers or businesses to fundamentally restructure their operations just to participate in the energy system, a detail further explored in this podcast episode.
NISO worked with Ofgem and the government to refine Power Responsive's evolution, ensuring that the program actively addresses market entry barriers. The current framework now engages directly with participants, removing unnecessary friction points and creating clearer pathways into flexibility markets.
"We want to make sure that consumers have the opportunity to participate across our energy system and be really involved."
Jonathan Wisdom — Head of Balancing Services Development and Delivery at NISO, the National Energy System Operator. Wisdom oversees how parties participate in NISO's markets and leads the organization's demand-side flexibility strategy. His work focuses on engaging consumers and businesses across the entire energy system and removing structural barriers to their participation.
Beyond barriers, the conversation also covers how NISO has set ambitious targets—aiming to grow flexibility participation from around 200 megawatts currently to approximately 950 megawatts or 1 gigawatt by 2030, a target-setting approach that details the scale of change Power Responsive is driving.
See also
How does flexibility help balance the modern energy system?
The energy system has shifted from centralized generation to a decentralized model where participants must actively contribute to balancing. Flexibility from consumers and businesses allows demand to respond dynamically to system needs.
What are the specific targets and goals for Power Responsive by 2030?
NISO currently has around 200 megawatts plus of flexibility participation and aims to grow that to approximately 950 megawatts or 1 gigawatt by 2030.
Who does Power Responsive want to bring into the conversation and involve?
Power Responsive engages domestic users through suppliers and aggregators, as well as industrial and commercial actors who can provide significant flexibility to the energy system.
Key takeaways
- Market complexity and industry structure are the primary barriers preventing consumers and businesses from entering flexibility markets.
- NISO's Power Responsive program is redesigning participation pathways to align with participants' real business operations and reduce friction.
- Simplification, not simplistic solutions, is the strategy—the goal is to make flexibility participation as accessible as possible without compromising viability.
- Working with regulators like Ofgem ensures that barrier removal happens at both the program and policy level.