Around 80pc of the targeted power savings are to come from convincing consumers to charge electric cars or run appliances such as washing machines at less busy hours, or by asking industrial consumers such as factories to cut their grid consumption, Neso said.
It added: “Levels of demand flexibility can increase by four-to-five times by 2030, with significant benefits for the transition to clean power by moving energy demand away from peak periods.”
Savings will come from issuing “the right signals at the right time”, which “directly impact the choices [consumers] make on a day-to-day basis, such as when to turn on their appliances”.
However, Neso admitted there was “a broad range of views” about how realistic its target was and that consumers risked being unable to benefit if they lacked the latest technologies.
Plans are ‘potentially damaging’
Kathryn Porter, an independent energy analyst at Watt Logic, warned that relying on demand reduction from industrial businesses also risked being self-defeating if they simply switched over to “behind-the-metre” diesel generators.
She added: “Neso’s plans to rely on demand-side response to deliver a major part of the net zero 2030 target are both optimistic and potentially damaging.
“On low wind days in particular, there would need to be both a significant reduction in consumption which would be economically and socially damaging, and an increase in behind-the-metre generation feeding into the grid.
“This is most likely to be diesel generators operated by businesses as back-up generation.”
Elsewhere, Neso laid bare the sheer scale of the challenge facing ministers if they are to reach their clean power target by 2030.
The report sets out two possible “realistic” scenarios for reaching the goal, including one where more renewables are built and households are more flexible, and another where more “dispatchable” power sources such as nuclear, hydrogen and gas with carbon capture are used.
However, both scenarios still involve a trebling of solar power and offshore wind capacity, a doubling of onshore wind capacity, a four-fold increase in battery capacity and a lifetime extension for at least one of the country’s ageing nuclear power plants – all in the next five years.
At least one reactor at Hinkley Point C, the delayed and over-budget nuclear power station being built in Somerset, would also need to switch on by 2030 – a prospect seen by many industry insiders as currently unlikely.
Gas-fired power plants would still provide up to 5pc of the country’s electricity to ensure security of supply.
Meanwhile, wind farm developers said the Government would need to urgently support a string of new factories to build cables, blades, foundations and towers needed for legions of new turbines.