Electrification of heat is a vital component in enabling industry to reduce dependence on imported gas. But the high price of electricity, when compared with fossil fuels, often holds back adoption of clean heat technologies. How can industry innovate process-heating to incorporate flexible operational strategies and improve the near-term business case for electrification? Flex Machina: Unlocking industrial flexibility’s full potential describes how common light-industrial processes in sectors such as food and drink, paper and pulp, textiles, and chemicals, can implement flexible electrification to displace gas-fired process heating. It also provides recommendations for regulators and policymakers on how to promote industrial flexibility, such as:

• Encouraging suppliers to offer tariffs that pass through low wholesale costs to consumers.
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• Introducing time-of-use network tariffs to help industry access lower electricity prices during times when the grid infrastructure has plenty of capacity.
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• Revising rules for entry into system service markets to enable industrial assets and their aggregators.
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These policy recommendations can be enacted in parallel with a wider suite of reforms aimed at making electricity cheaper and unlocking electrification, to underpin European energy security.

Download the full documentation: rap-oxenaar-butler-flex-machina-march-2026