FLEX-TRUST is the independent data & AI assurance layer that turns self-reported flexibility into a verified, grid-settlement-grade signal.
Start a conversation →The institutions, codes and markets FLEX-TRUST is built to serve.
Aggregators and insurers have no independent way to confirm that claimed flexibility actually happened, increasing the settlement risk. Today, the party reporting it is the party being paid.
FLEX-TRUST is the independent data and AI assurance layer that closes that gap: we verify the number and publish our confidence in it.
As flexibility scales, settlements still rest on data that no independent party can verify.'
Measuring consumption is solved. Estimating what consumption would have been, on a cold evening, in a specific building, with real people inside it — that is an open technical problem, and it is the number every payment depends on.
FLEX-TRUST treats that estimate the way a settlement system treats a trade: produced by an independent party, method published, and never reported without its error bar.
Telemetry from building controls and metering, complete with the gaps, drift and irregular intervals that real estates produce. No cleaned demo feed.
The counterfactual is estimated against building thermal behaviour and occupancy noise, then tested against withheld ground truth so the error is measured, not asserted.
A signed, settlement-ready figure with its confidence interval, its method version, and the comfort record for the dwellings involved. Auditable after the fact.
You carry the baseline risk today. An independent attestation is something you can put in front of a counterparty, an auditor or a network without asking them to take your word for it. Reduced settlement risk.
Before a resident's heating is paused, someone should be able to demonstrate that the home stayed warm. Comfort is verified as a first-class output, on equal footing with the kilowatts.
Distributed turn-down only substitutes for reinforcement or generation if its delivery is measurable at the node with a known error. Aggregated to substation level, never to the household.
The UK needs households and buildings to deliver real flexibility.
That only works if the numbers can be trusted.
Most flexibility claims today are self-reported by the same systems that create them.
When settlements, grid security or policy targets depend on those numbers, counterparties and the system operator are left taking them on trust.
The result is slower participation and less flexible capacity than the system requires.
FLEX-TRUST closes that gap. It measures whether the turn-down happened, states the confidence in that measurement, and produces a score the market can actually use.
For the energy system: a clearer, more bankable signal.
For housing providers and residents: flexibility that respects value, comfort, and privacy.
For government: a practical contribution to the 2 GW consumer-led flexibility target, built on verification rather than assertion.
The method is inspectable. The service that runs it stays independent of any single optimiser or asset owner. That separation is intentional.
We are proving the approach through the current research programme. Once demonstrated, the operational service can be sustained commercially while the verification claim itself remains independent.
Publishing a method is not the same as giving away a service. Running verification at national scale takes calibration data, operational rigour and a party whose independence counterparties will actually accept — none of which arrive for free.
The software that runs the standard is commercially owned and licensed. Licence revenue funds the standard's operation once the research programme concludes, and keeps the verifying party structurally independent of the assets and platforms it assesses.
We are talking to partners and long-term capital about that second half. It is a conversation about structure and independence first, and terms second.
Once flexibility is relied upon for network planning, settlement or investment decisions, the party carrying that reliance has a direct interest in independent verification of the figures behind it:
Networks and the system operator — verified turn-down at a constrained node supports planning decisions that would otherwise rest on a provider's own reporting.
Aggregators and flexibility providers — an independent attestation is evidence they can put in front of a counterparty, funder or auditor, rather than a figure they alone stand behind.
Lenders and insurers — underwriting or lending against flexibility revenue requires a measurement of delivery risk that was not produced by the party being financed.
Asset owners and social landlords — where flexibility revenue is shared with a landlord or resident, an independent figure gives that party something to check the calculation against.
Independent verification only holds its value if payment for it is structured so it cannot be read as payment for a result. We work to principles used in other assurance markets — audit, calibration, technical due diligence:
Published, fixed fee schedules — no fee is contingent on the outcome of an attestation.
No commercial advisory sold to a party we are attesting — the verification relationship and the advisory relationship do not sit with the same client at the same time.
Disclosed method and disclosed performance — the baseline methodology is published, and our own accuracy record is available for scrutiny, not only the scores we issue.
FLEX-TRUST is being taken forward as an application to the UKRI Consumer Led Flexibility challenge, part of the Clean Energy Superpower Mission within the R&D Missions Accelerator Programme — the national programme working to unlock at least 2GW of additional consumer-led flexibility by 2030.
We're looking for strategic parners to help us scale Flex-Trust. Interested in shaping the future of flexibility markets? Schedule a call at: flextrust@insightcircle.co.uk