Remaking the regulatory model? Taking stock of ten years of customer engagement in Britain’s energy networks

Over the past decade, a concerted effort has been made in Britain to encourage and incentivise regulated energy network companies to engage directly with their customers through a process known as customer engagement (CE). Drawing on a series of semi-structured interviews and document analysis, the paper tracks the processes of implementing CE within regulation from 2010 to 2020. Given its increasing prominence in the regulatory framework for energy networks, the paper examines how various stakeholders involved in the regulatory process have experienced it and evaluate its importance. Based on this analysis we discuss what lessons can be learned as the challenge of transitioning to more active and flexible local and regional energy distribution networks is faced. We identify key challenges of moving from an experimental phase and embedding CE in the mainstream regulatory framework.