The flexibility we need is already inside people's homes
Britain is building more clean power, but we still waste flexible capacity inside people's homes. ChargeSync is not asking for subsidy, only that household optimisation is recognised as part of the flexibility system.
The gap
A battery on a fixed timer is not a flexibility asset, it's hardware waiting for better instructions. But every manufacturer ships its own closed API, so the market fragments into silos and households can't choose better instructions for kit they own. The whole system pays: wind curtailed, peaking gas fired, network reinforcement brought forward, all for want of software.
The fix
Behind-the-meter optimisation turns household equipment into useful infrastructure, charging when clean power is abundant, avoiding expensive peaks, reducing curtailment and lowering bills for families. It needs no subsidy, only recognition and open device APIs; with those in place, software puts millions of existing assets to work for billpayers and the grid alike.
What you get
Flexibility put to work
Turns existing home batteries, solar, EVs and heat pumps into responsive, bill-cutting infrastructure.
Household-first & durable
Flexibility scales only if households trust it. Lowering the owner's bill first is the politically durable model.
Consumer protection by structure
A published savings methodology, a vulnerable-customer policy enforced inside the optimiser, and a customer-data-on-insolvency commitment, the direct answer to a hard industry lesson: hardware never bricks, data escrowed, 90-day export.
A UK growth opportunity
Skilled software and energy-analytics jobs, and an export-ready capability as other markets electrify.
Not subsidy, recognition
Market access
Ensure flexibility-market rules don't exclude behind-the-meter household assets aggregated through independent optimisers.
Metering & data standards
Let households share consumption and flexibility data securely with the optimiser of their choice.
Planning & building guidance
Reference intelligent energy management, not just static panels and batteries, in new-build and retrofit guidance.
Open device APIs
Require every battery, inverter, EV charger and heat pump sold in the UK to expose an open, documented control API, so households can point software they choose at hardware they own.
True home optimisation needs open APIs
Whole-home optimisation has a precondition: the equipment must be controllable by software the household chooses. Today that access exists at each manufacturer's discretion, granted, altered or withdrawn commercially. Every battery, inverter, EV charger and heat pump capable of being optimised should expose an open, standard control API, so the household, not the manufacturer, decides whose intelligence runs their home. Without it, "smart" hardware is a set of silos and every household is one firmware update from lock-in.
The GivEnergy administration made the risk concrete: equipment on people's walls kept working, but the API that households and independent services relied on ended up behind a paywall, access to kit families already own, resold back to them out of insolvency. An open-API requirement, on the model of Open Banking, makes that structurally impossible, and it costs the Exchequer nothing.
More than shaving the evening peak
Coordinated household flexibility supports the grid at several points at once: flexible capacity supplied at lower cost, network reinforcement deferred, surplus renewables absorbed rather than curtailed, and peaking gas fired less often. We're honest about the limits, too. Short-duration home batteries shift and shave demand. Through a still, dark winter spell they complement firm low-carbon capacity; they don't replace it.
Frequently asked questions
What is ChargeSync asking for?
What happens to a customer's battery and data if ChargeSync fails?
Why isn't a home battery already a flexibility asset?
Why does household-first matter politically?
Why do open device APIs matter?
What's the UK industry angle?
Recognise household flexibility
None of this needs subsidy, it needs the rules to see what's already on people's walls and driveways. Recognise household flexibility, and let it work for billpayers and the grid alike.