Energy security is back on the front pages and the cost-of-living conversation hasn’t gone away. Add geopolitical shocks every few hours, and the UK is left in an uncomfortable (but unavoidable) tension. We’re accelerating clean energy ambitions at the same time as we’re expected to keep bills down and the lights on through winter peaks, heatwaves, and whatever the news cycle throws at us next.
That was the recurring theme across last week’s keynotes at National Gas Energy Forum: decarbonisation is non-negotiable, but so is resilience. And the system we’re building has to do both.
The gas paradox
One of the most striking messages was this: overall gas demand is falling, but peak gas demand is rising.
That matters because energy systems aren’t built around averages. They’re built around the moments that stress them. As such, peaks set network capacity, investment needs, and ultimately what households and businesses pay for reliability.
In 2025, around 26% of UK power was gas-fired, and we heard repeated examples of how quickly gas can respond when electricity demand spikes or renewables dip. And those swings are likely to get more pronounced. More renewables powering the system, means there is a bigger gap to fill when conditions don’t allow for generation.
The honest truth: we’re planning through uncertainty
Another theme that came through strongly was uncertainty. No one is pretending they can predict exactly where gas demand will land in 20 years, or what the policy, price and technology mix will look like by then.
Even if you can’t forecast precisely, you can stress-test. And we are all agreed our economy will be powered by more electricity. Renewables can displace a lot of fossil generation. But there will still be periods (especially during peaks) when the system needs firm, flexible capacity. Which makes the next question unavoidable; what sits behind electricity when conditions aren’t ideal?
Biomethane: “new molecules” that keep today’s system useful
If the UK is going to keep using the gas network intelligently, biomethane starts to look like one of the most practical “bridge-and-beyond” options: decarbonising what flows through existing infrastructure rather than starting from scratch.
Anaerobic digestion isn’t new, in fact it’s been around for over a century. It’s just never quite scaled up like other technologies.
One speaker’s point stuck with me because it connects policy ambition to physical reality: scaling biomethane isn’t just about technology. It’s about long-term supply relationships (hundreds of farms), logistics, and planning.
And planning is still the biggest drag factor. And when local opposition becomes the blocker, the challenge is rarely technical. It’s building trust with the community for them to stop objecting, rather than vocally supporting your operations.
Hydrogen, CCUS and the Humber: why clusters are becoming the strategy
The “new molecules” conversation didn’t stop at biomethane. The keynotes also returned to the growing logic of regional clusters, especially in places like the Humber for hydrogen. It was highlighted as a strong fit because of geography, skills, existing infrastructure, and (crucially) storage potential. As a former University of Hull student, I remember a wind turbine blade sitting in the city centre for a term. This is an early reminder that the energy transition is something communities see and feel, not just something policymakers model.
Projects like a phased hydrogen pipeline build-out (starting in the Humber, then linking towards Teesside and Scotland) underscore the direction of travel: the shift from isolated pilots to connected, scalable networks. And, crucially, where possible utilising existing infrastructure.
Flexibility: the missing headline
If there was one word that linked nearly every keynote, it was flexibility.
We heard that consumer flexibility needs to rise dramatically by 2030. This requires you and me to change how we think about our relationship with energy. These kinds of shifts don’t happen overnight, or without careful messaging and communications campaigns that allow people to believe the future is better than today.
And this is also where the infrastructure conversation gets uncomfortable. The grid isn’t set up to cope with this changing world well enough. The grid connection queue is often criticised for being too slow, but there are more projects in the queue than we need for 2030’s predicted demand needs. So, do we need to debate less about the length of the queue but the quality of what’s in it? And what we should be building first.
Storage is resilience
Energy storage was framed less as a single technology and more as a resilience strategy.
Salt caverns, in particular, are compelling because they can support fast cycling – this is less about seasonal storage and more about multiple cycles throughout the year to support with balancing needs.
These salt caverns can potentially be converted to store hydrogen, bridging today’s security needs with tomorrow’s decarbonised system. However, the different energy densities of natural gas and hydrogen mean a future world will need a far greater storage volume to keep the same potential energy demand. Where today a storage facility could hold 5GW of natural gas, the same space would hold nearer to 1.2GW of hydrogen. The amount of storage locations needs to increase, but so does the scale of those sites.
Volatility is the new normal
On the operational side, there was a reality check: even when assets perform well (including through unusual weather patterns like a May heatwave), markets can still swing rapidly on headlines. Prices can double in days, flows can reverse, and exports can rise when the price signal says so.
The energy transition isn’t a straight-line replacement story where renewables simply “remove” gas. It’s a systems story.
We’re electrifying because it’s the most efficient way to run a modern economy.
But electrification creates new peaks, new constraints, and a bigger premium on flexibility.
In this new world, “molecules” don’t disappear but their value shifts. They matter less as baseload and more as insurance: the capacity you call on when conditions aren’t ideal. The real challenge is getting the right mix of flexibility, storage and clean molecules to reach clean power without breaking the bank or the grid.
The UK’s clean power shift won’t be a straight replacement of gas with renewables. TEAM LEWIS helps energy and infrastructure teams translate complex transition plans into credible storytelling campaigns and stakeholder engagement.
