The session revealed not only the pressures facing the UK but also the areas where the country can lead, if it acts decisively.

1. Global Context: A Race for Electrons

The conversation opened with a blunt assessment: the global energy and storage transition is accelerating unevenly, and the UK is being squeezed between two dominant models.

In the US, the landscape is shaped by:

• Cheap, abundant gas in states such as Texas and the Permian Basin.

• Deep pools of capital and aggressive investment in storage.

• Rapid scaling of consumer and grid-scale technologies, including AI-driven products where “electrons are the new gold.”

In China, the model is different but equally powerful:

• State-backed, long-horizon industrial planning.

• City-scale, vertically integrated manufacturing from minerals to end-products.

• Accelerating dominance in lithium-ion and sodium-ion technologies.

By comparison, the UK and Europe face higher energy prices, slower grid connections, and policy volatility, yet retain world-class research, strong systems-integration expertise, and significant renewable resources.

The central concern voiced by the panel: will the UK commercialise its ideas here, or watch others do it faster and cheaper?

2. UK Strengths: Integration, Innovation and Industrial Potential

Despite global pressures, the UK still has a strong hand to play, not necessarily in commodity manufacturing, but in system-level intelligence and integration.

Experts highlighted:

• Integration capability: combining batteries, hydrogen, tidal, solar, gas and advanced EMS to optimise constrained grids.

• Innovation infrastructure: major battery investments, the UK Battery Industrialisation Centre, and circular-economy hubs such as Tyseley Energy Park.

• Experience and legacy assets: expertise in decommissioning, offshore wind and storage, and repurposing former power-station sites for SMRs, data centres and future energy hubs.

The consensus was clear: the UK does not need to dominate every part of the value chain but must not give away the highest-value, most defensible segments.

3. Technology Choices: Stop Picking Winners, Start Backing Portfolios

One of the firmest positions across the room was frustration with policies that narrow the technology mix too early.

Examples included:

• Heat: hybrid heat pumps being deprioritised despite strong results in Europe.

• To explore these questions, Headpoint Advisors convened leaders from across the energy ecosystem - including law, finance, manufacturing, hydrogen, long-duration storage, academia, networks and policy - for a candid discussion about the opportunities and challenges ahead.

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• Hydrogen: investment hesitancy caused by restrictive or inconsistent guidance.

• Storage: frameworks that fail to reflect the breadth of technologies — from lithium-ion and sodium-ion to flow, pumped hydro and thermal.

The message was direct:

The UK needs all credible options (electricity, gas, hydrogen, nuclear, tidal, heat networks and multiple storage types) working together.

The government, speakers argued, should focus on evidence-based consultation, policy stability and portfolio thinking rather than “fashionable” technologies.

4. Beyond Lithium: Diversity, Second Life and Circularity

Across the storage discussion, the group highlighted a decisive shift away from thinking in terms of a single technology and instead toward a more diverse, circular and resilient system. While lithium-ion continues to dominate today, it is reaching maturity, opening the door for alternatives such as sodium-ion, which offers lower costs and leverages much of the same manufacturing infrastructure, and long-duration options including flow batteries, pumped hydro and compressed air.

The discussion also emphasised the value of the UK’s gas networks and underground caverns for future hydrogen storage, particularly for seasonal balancing. A major emerging opportunity lies in second-life batteries: as electric buses and vehicles scale, the UK will soon have significant volumes of high-quality used batteries suitable for stationary storage, with early examples such as the 40 MWh of bus batteries in Coventry already proving the model. Combined with greater focus on recycling and circularity, which could eventually supply 10–20% of the UK’s critical materials, these developments offer a route to improved energy security, reduced import dependence and a more balanced, future-proof storage ecosystem.

5. Data Centres, AI and the Surge in Power Demand

AI and data centres are reshaping energy demand at extraordinary speed.

Speakers noted:

• AI facilities drawing 170 MW at single sites, and multi-GW clusters where turbine supply is the limiting factor.

• Operators prioritising ultra-reliable power and often investing in on-site gas turbines for stability.

• Large, sudden load changes posing risks to grid stability as evidenced by recent outages in Iberia.

• Local concerns about land use: high power draw, low job creation.

Waste heat emerged as a major, under-utilised opportunity, with Nordic-style district heating models and UK pilots (e.g. Stoke-on-Trent) offering promising examples.

6. Grid, Connections and the “Right to Power”

Looking beyond domestic challenges, the discussion highlighted the UK’s potential to turn its innovation into export strength. Every solution successfully demonstrated here - whether in storage systems, energy-management software, heat networks, hydrogen applications, thermal management, or data-centre integration - has significant global demand. Ukraine’s reconstruction was cited as a powerful example of where UK expertise could lead, with the shift toward decentralised, low-carbon, resilient mini-grids creating opportunities for British engineering, design and advisory capability.

Similarly, the UK’s track record in decommissioning, its emerging SMR capabilities and its leadership in integrated system design could form the basis of new export industries. The message was clear: what we validate at home can become a competitive advantage abroad, provided the UK positions itself to capture that opportunity.

7. Policy, Procurement and the Missing 20-Year Plan

Many frustrations stemmed from short political cycles and fragmented regulation.

Participants highlighted:

• Confusing and slow decision-making.

• Mixed messages and stop–start incentives.

• Missed opportunities to support UK industry even when domestic options cost only around 5% more.

Procurement emerged as a major untapped lever: The government could use infrastructure projects to build domestic capability through rising local-content requirements, aligned with UK Export Finance principles.

Industry leaders emphasised the need for a credible, cross-party 20-year roadmap. Staging that without it, the UK risks being a perpetual buyer, not a builder.

8. Security, Geopolitics and Cyber Risk

The panel discussed the UK’s strategic vulnerabilities:

• Heavy dependence on Chinese hardware.

• Rising cybersecurity risks in more electrified and digitalised energy systems.

• The fragility of cities if major outages occur.

• Opportunities included diversifying technology sources, investing in cyber-resilient systems, and building a balanced generation and storage mix.

9. From Challenge to Opportunity: What the UK Can Do Next

Despite the challenges, the tone by the end of the session was one of constructive determination with agreement on several actionable priorities:

Stop ruling out viable technologies too early. Keep hydrogen, hybrid heat pumps, gas networks, nuclear and multiple storage types on the table.

Build a balanced, complementary technology mix, with each used where it works best.

Double down on efficiency and on-site generation - the economics already stack up.

Scale circularity and second-life systems to enhance security.

Lead in grid integration, control systems and energy-digital convergence, areas where the UK already excels.

Export proven solutions, especially into markets rebuilding or decentralising, such as Ukraine.

Closing Reflection

Across perspectives, the message was consistent: the UK has the intellect, innovation ecosystem and technical capability to lead in next-generation energy systems. The brakes are political volatility, regulatory fragmentation and slow decision-making, not a lack of opportunity.

With clearer direction, stable signals and industrial-minded procurement, the UK can shift from being a customer of other nations’ energy transitions to being a creator of its own.

The opportunity is real. The question is whether we choose to seize it.

M&A Outlook: Where Headpoint Sees Opportunity

Throughout the discussion, themes closely aligned with what we see in the mid-market:

• buyers seeking integration capability over commodity production

• strong interest in businesses enabling grid flexibility, distributed resilience and system optimisation

• rising appetite for circularity, second-life assets and critical-materials recovery

• increased focus on cybersecurity for energy infrastructure

• continued consolidation in storage, hydrogen, EMS and data-centre-adjacent technologies

For founders, investors and corporates operating in this landscape, the next five years offer meaningful opportunity, but timing, positioning and partner selection will matter more than ever.

The UK has the expertise, innovation and industrial potential to lead parts of the global energy transition, but realising that potential requires clarity, coordination and sustained investment. Where ideas, integration and systems capability converge, the UK can compete globally. And where that capability aligns with market need, strategic M&A will continue to play a defining role.

If you would like to explore what these trends mean for your business or discuss strategic options, Richard Benyahia would be pleased to talk.