Nick Huntbatch is Chief Product Officer at Electron, where he leads the development of digital platforms that enable electricity network operators and energy providers to access and trade flexibility.
With over 15 years of experience developing and bringing complex software solutions to market, Nick specialises in technology that connects multiple participants across the energy sector.
His work focuses on scaling flexibility markets, improving coordination between energy assets and networks, and helping unlock greater value from existing electricity infrastructure.
1. What do you see as the biggest challenge currently preventing flexibility markets from reaching their full potential?
Fragmentation. A flexibility provider today faces different routes to market depending on the buyer, and uncoordinated market designs with small value pools across multiple buyers. In addition a lot of the time flexible MWs are locked in over long periods, with little chance of dispatch. The flexibility exists. Making it easy to offer in more than one place, and coming up with the optimal solution for whole system value, is the bit we haven't cracked yet.
2. How is technology changing the way flexibility is bought, sold and valued across electricity markets?
It's turning flexibility from a bespoke, contract-by-contract exercise into something closer to a traded product. Digital marketplaces, standardised asset registration and automated dispatch and settlement mean buyers and sellers can see and compare value across multiple markets. That transparency is what lets flexibility be valued for what it's actually worth to the system.
3. As negative electricity prices become more common, what opportunities does this create for flexibility providers, and what still needs to change?
Negative prices are a clear signal that the system needs demand to turn up, not just down. That's a big opportunity for storage, EVs, heat and industrial demand that can shift into those periods. To capture it, we need markets and baselines that reward turn-up as well as turn-down, locational signals so flexibility responds where the constraint actually is, and stacking rules that let one asset serve local and national needs without being penalised.
4. Looking ahead over the next few years, what developments do you expect to have the greatest impact on flexibility markets?
Common rules and shared infrastructure across buyers: a single place to register assets, consistent baselining, and stacking by default. Combined with half-hourly settlement data becoming the norm, that will make it far simpler for millions of smaller assets to participate. The second big shift is coordination between local and national system operators, so flexibility is dispatched where it delivers the most value overall.
5. Why are you taking part in Technology Optimists, and what are you most looking forward to discussing?
Because I am one! The tools to make a flexible, renewables-led system work largely exist; the challenge now is market design and joining things up. I'm looking forward to a practical discussion with the panel on turning negative prices from a symptom of an inflexible system into an opportunity, and hearing how others are tackling it.
Looking forward to it!
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