The Commission (NIC) added that it could still be possible for government to meet the timescales for the consultation with some “acceleration and pace”.
Speaking at the Utility Week Congress this week NIC chief executive Phillip Graham said: “There is no point looking backwards. BEIS needs to get that consultation out quickly and we have encouraging noises from ministers that they care about it… But that enthusiasm needs to be turned into action now and we will be looking very carefully at whether the government is moving forward.
“It should still be possible to do within the timescale they set themselves, but even if that proves impossible, there is no point in stopping now. But I think they can still make it with some acceleration and pace.”
Graham also said that commencing the consultation this year was “crucial” to make the use of storage and demand flexibility easier and able to compete “on a level playing field” with other forms of generation.
The former Department of Energy and Climate Change (Decc) said in April 2016 that it would imminently launch a consultation on smart energy systems such as demand-side response and energy storage. Former energy minister Andrea Leadsom said that storage was “a top priority” for the department, but the consultation is yet to begin despite it setting itself a deadline to launch the outcomes and reforms it intends to make in Spring 2017.
BEIS head of CfD design and low carbon technologies Declan Burke responded to the comments from the NIC, saying: “I can confirm it is a key area of focus for the department and for ministers. It is almost impossible to think of the electricity and power sector without thinking of these sorts of things. This has got to be the last gig.”
Utility Week Congress was supported by Unipart Group and Fugro