We’re looking for a consortium partner for a UKRI Consumer Led Flexibility (CLF) bid

Bid submission: 26 August 2026 | Project start: 1 December 2026

Icebreaker One is leading a bid consortium for UKRI’s Consumer Led Flexibility (CLF) competition, part of the Clean Energy Superpower Mission. Our focus is building the trusted data sharing infrastructure required to make industrial and commercial (I&C) energy flexibility work at scale.

Many businesses are facing pressures around rising energy costs, the need for greater operational resilience, and growing expectations around net zero commitments. This project helps organisations understand where flexibility exists within their operations, how it could unlock access to finance for low-carbon investment, and how flexibility actions can contribute towards emissions reporting and decarbonisation goals.

As a consortium partner, you’ll help shape the infrastructure that could make these opportunities easier to access across the market.

Why join?

Partners will work with the consortium to:

• source and analyse energy data from a target site or business stream
• understand where flexibility capacity genuinely exists within safe operational limits
• explore how that capacity grows as you electrify (EV fleets, heat pumps, solar, batteries)
• investigate what it all means for your emissions reporting.
• shape an innovative smart data Scheme 

Participation is designed to fit around your organisation. Together, we’ll agree on the trial scope whether that’s target sites, single business lines or dummy data rather than live. Automation is the goal, not manual participation.

Why now? 

I&C consumers remain under-represented in flexibility markets, and participation has actually declined since the 2010s. Despite 170MW of I&C flex being added in 2026, the Clean Flexibility Roadmap estimates that another 580MW will be needed by 2030.

Over six months of discovery research with more than 70 stakeholders across 48 organisations we found that the business case for flexibility often doesn’t stack up on market revenues alone, and the data needed to unlock wider value is often fragmented. 

We’ve therefore narrowed our focus to:

1. Access to enabling finance through faster, cheaper routes to funding low carbon tech, flexibility assets and control systems
2. Evidencing carbon impact so flexibility actions can count towards decarbonisation strategies and ESG reporting

We’re particularly interested in multi-site businesses with multiple business lines or complex, varied demand profiles, exactly the type of organisations the current market is least set up to serve. 

Cost recovery and work package ownership are open for discussion in line with UKRI funding rules.

Key dates:

26 August 2026 – Bid submission
28 October 2026 – Applicants notified
1 December 2026 – Project start

Given the submission date, we’d like to hear from interested organisations in the next couple of days. Reach out to gea@icebreakerone.org