Unlocking non‑domestic flexibility: helping power the UK’s clean energy future

Cathy McClay is Managing Director of National Grid DSO, where she leads the planning and operation of a smart, flexible distribution system that supports local customers and communities.

With over 25 years in the electricity industry, Cathy has worked across the UK and Europe in roles spanning energy trading, strategy, and system operation. At National Grid System Operator, she led the opening up of ancillary service markets to new forms of flexibility, including batteries and demand-side response. She later led Trading and Optimisation at Sembcorp UK, managing a portfolio of flexible assets.

Prior , Cathy was Director of Flexibility at ENOWA, the energy company of NEOM in Saudi Arabia, where she was responsible for ensuring that everything was in place to be able to balance and control the fully renewable energy system, including the design and implementation of the flexibility market.  In addition, Cathy led the teams developing the physical flexible assets needed to balance the system, including a 2.1GW, 23 GWh pumped storage station in the desert.

In December 2025, Cathy was appointed as the first Flexibility Commissioner for Great Britain.

Peter was appointed to the Board as CEO on 1 October 2023 and is responsible for delivering Elexon’s vision and strategy, and overall day to day performance of the business for the benefit of our customers and ultimately consumers.

Elexon manages a number of electricity market arrangements including the Balancing and Settlement Code (BSC), Market Facilitator for Local Distributed Flexibility, the Data Integration Platform, the Capacity Market Advisory Group and implementation Manager of the Market Wide Half Hourly Settlement programme on behalf of Ofgem. We are also the Settlement Services Provider for Contracts for Difference, Capacity Market and Nuclear RAB scheme for the Low Carbon Contracts Company.

Previously Peter was an Executive Director and Chief Operating Officer (COO) at Elexon. As Chief Operating Officer he was responsible for Elexon’s code delivery body functions under the obligations laid out in the Balancing and Settlement Code (BSC) and for developing and realising the vision for the Elexon Kinnect platform, that has underpinned the Elexon’s transformation of our digital and data capabilities, driving key initiatives for market insight services, data exploitation, and flexibility markets to support CP2030 and Net Zero.

Peter has over 35 years’ experience in the electricity industry and has gained a strong background in driving technology and data focused transformations within the energy sector.

James Johnston is the CEO and cofounder of Piclo, the world’s leading marketplace for grid flexibility. Prior to Piclo, James spent 3 years researching microgrids at University of Strathclyde. James is also the founder of Solar Sketch, a design company for the solar industry and worked at international engineering firm Arup. James is a published author contributing chapters to Academic Press books on peer-to-peer energy and local flexibility trading.