Our strategy

Community and local energy strategy

Our strategy sets out our actions for forging links with community and local energy groups to support the growth of the sector in our region.

In 2018 we became the first network operator to publish a strategy to set out our support for the community and local energy sector. 

Our strategy demonstrates a clear commitment to our customers in this exciting and rapidly changing area. It was developed in consultation with our stakeholders to ensure it addresses the issues they are facing and to make sure our response is well informed.

Since then there have been many developments and changes in the energy industry as part of the transition to net zero carbon.

To reflect these changes we have published an updated version of our strategy which includes an action plan with 25 commitments to the sector and 15 new actions.

In our strategy we outline our plans to continue to engage with our community and local energy stakeholders, to further develop our understanding of the issues and barriers faced by the sector. This work will be led by our dedicated community energy manager and includes:

  • Community Connects engagement events which aim to help the sector increase its skills and capacity as well as providing an opportunity to engage
  • Quarterly newsletters
  • Quarterly policy and regulation updates
  • Tailored opportunities to engage with the parts of our business which are the most relevant to community and local energy stakeholders eg connections, flexible services and the transition to distribution system operation (DSO).

We have also committed to continue our annual Powering our Communities Fund for the rest of this price control until 2022/23 and to develop proposals to support community and local energy in the next price review period (RIIO-ED2).

We know our sector can be technical and difficult to understand, so we have used this document as a way of demystifying the activities which are of most interest to our community and local energy stakeholders.

As part of our ongoing commitment to stakeholder engagement we would like to hear your feedback on our strategy. Please tell us what you think by completing this short survey.