Community and local energy strategy
Forging links with the community and local energy groups
RIIO-ED1 Final progress report, April 2023
Contents
1. Welcome
2. Introduction to Electricity North West
3. What is community and local energy?
4. Community energy in the North West
5. This year's highlights
6. What our stakeholders told us
7. Action plan progress report
8. Future plans
9. How to get in touch
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COMMUNITY AND LOCAL ENERGY STRATEGY ANNUAL REPORT
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From April 2023 Electricity North West will enter a new price
control RIIO-ED2, with a new business plan. RIIO-ED2 will
run from April 2023-March 2028 and in partnership with our
stakeholders, we will create a new Community and Local
Energy Action Plan for this period.
We intend to continue our support and the new action plan
will be shaped by what our customers and stakeholders tell
us they need from us.
This report focuses on what we have delivered to date to
enable communities to take part in the low carbon transition
and we will use it as a springboard for our future plans.
I hope you find this document accessible and informative and
I encourage you to share your feedback with us via this online
form.
Steve Cox
Asset & Technology Director
1.
Welcome
Welcome to this progress report, the final one
for ED1, which reports back to you, our
stakeholders, on our activity and
achievements since we launched our first
community and local energy strategy in
2017.
The Committee on Climate Change and others have
stated that community-level action is essential in the
challenge to meet the UK’s net zero targets. We have
also seen a ground swell of interest from communities
wanting to do their bit to tackle climate change and
take part in the energy transition.
Electricity North West is proud to play a role in
supporting communities with their net zero plans and
activities. We know we have a crucial role to play in
the North West’s progress towards net zero and
intend to play a leading role in supporting all of our
customers to take action on climate change.
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COMMUNITY AND LOCAL ENERGY STRATEGY ANNUAL REPORT
Who is Electricity North West?
Electricity North West Limited is the electrical distribution
network operator (DNO) in the North West of England. We own,
operate and maintain the network of overhead lines and
underground cables and are proud to power to lives of five million
people in the region.
The way we use electricity is changing rapidly. Electricity North
West is at the forefront of energy innovation, working with local
communities, key stakeholders and expert partners to ensure
everyone has the power they need when they need it.
2.
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COMMUNITY AND LOCAL ENERGY STRATEGY ANNUAL REPORT
How we engage with customers
and stakeholders
When we talk about stakeholders we mean customers like
community energy businesses or local community groups who
pay their electricity bill or who are developing a project that will
require a grid connection. We also mean wider stakeholders who
have an interest in community level action such a local authorities
and Community Energy England. We aim to engage with and get
feedback from all these groups every year to ensure we are
delivering a valued service.
Regular Community Connects engagement events
Quarterly Community and local energy newsletters
Quarterly Regulation and Policy updates
Regular social media updates
Annual State of the Sector report
Attending external meetings and events
Individual meetings with community and local energy
organisations
Surveys and feedback questionnaires
We use a range of tools to engage with
stakeholders including:
We are always looking for new ways to engage and feedback on our
engagement methods. If you have any comments or suggestions,
please feel free to contact us.
Introduction to Electricity North West
Community energy refers to local and community-led
projects or initiatives to reduce, manage, generate or
purchase energy. And this covers so much, from providing
energy saving advice to installing solar panels, heat
pumps and electric vehicle charging points. At the heart of
all our community energy projects is the importance of
working with communities and bringing benefits to the
local area.
As the name suggests, community energy projects are
often run by local community groups. But there are lots of
different groups and organisations involved in community
energy projects including local authorities, housing
associations, intermediary or advisory organisations and
local businesses. Some local energy projects may have a
commercial aspect, but are also likely to benefit their
local area and community.
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STATE OF THE SECTOR REPORT AUGUST 2022
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What is community and local energy?
0 10 20 km
Community Benefit Society
Charity
Communtiy Interest Company
Company Limited by Guarantee
Co-operative Society
Unincorporated
Other
4.
Community energy in the North West
5150
members
244
volunteers
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COMMUNITY AND LOCAL ENERGY STRATEGY ANNUAL REPORT
Powering 15,000 households
Saving 12,000 †CO annually
17.6MW of installed electricity
capacity generating 43GWh of
electricity
Headlines
42 community energy
organisations in the North West
Groups also work on low carbon heat, energy efficiency and low carbon
transport. Visit our case studies web pages to find great examples of
community energy projects.
Source: State of the Sector Report 2021
2e
The top three areas where community and local energy would like us
to focus our efforts haven’t change they are still access to Electricity
North West, finance and regulation.
Customers and stakeholders are ambitious about what community
and local energy can achieve but need our support to meet its
ambitions.
One of the key roles DNOs like Electricity North West can play is
ensure network capacity is not a barrier and delivering a customer
friendly connections process that enables projects.
Community energy operates in a challenging environment but is agile,
innovative and resourceful which means it is still delivering projects.
Seventeen new projects were identified as part of the State of the
Sector survey for 2021.
Local supply is still a key issue for most community energy groups for
both financial and engagement reasons.
Electricity North West has had a proactive engagement strategy since
2017, which led to our first Community and Local Energy Strategy being
published in 2018.
Since then we have focused on developing relationships with
communities across our region, understanding the issues and barriers
they face to develop their own energy projects and in response, providing
appropriate support.
As a result of this stakeholder engagement we have updated our
understanding of the issues and priorities facing community and local
energy in our region:
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4.
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COMMUNITY AND LOCAL ENERGY STRATEGY ANNUAL REPORT
£400K
18,587
46 23
allocated to
Powering our
Communities fund
grants
Over 3000 individual
engagement activities
delivered
projects supported with
a Powering our
Communities Fund
grant
Visits to community
and local energy web
pages
Newsletters and
engagement emails
shared with over 377
stakeholders
Winners of the
Utility Week
Award
Community
Investor Award,
2022
Strategic
Innovation Fund
projects
developed with
two community
energy
organisations
Community Connects
events held, attended
by over 1000 people
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5.
RIIO-ED1 Highlights
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3000
6. What our stakeholders
have told us
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I really appreciate how
responsive and engaged
Electricity North West have been
to help with grid queries. It's
great to work with people who
are keen to find solutions to the
knotty problems we all come
across so often on our complex
quest for Net Zero!
North West local authority rep
Great launch event and really
excellent speakers, very
inspiring as usual.
Grant recipient, Cumbria
ACTION PLAN PROGRESS REPORT 2017-23
Action No
Dates
Progress to March 2023
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Our dedicated community energy manager will continue to lead the delivery and development
of this strategy which aims to forge links with the community and local energy sector and
develop our response to their requirements.
As a key part of our engagement strategy, we will continue to deliver Community Connects
workshops to help address issues the sector is facing particularly relating to capacity and
skills development. We will use these events to provide an opportunity to engage with us and
for us to engage with the sector to develop our understanding of the issues it is facing.
We will develop the resources on our website to make sure our services are accessible to
community and local energy customers and to provide resources to help groups get their
projects started.
We will continue to produce a quarterly newsletter to keep customers and stakeholders up to
date with developments that affect the sector. We will also produce guide(s) and case studies
to help community and local energy groups learn from each other how to develop projects.
We will make sure our resources reach as many community and local energy stakeholders as
possible; we will undertake a promotion campaign with community partners to ensure
stakeholders are aware of our resources and bookable surgery slots
We will continue to encourage early engagement, improve routes into our business and
allocate engineering resources to support projects at the initial stages to identify the best
point of connection.
We will actively engage with stakeholders to identify and improve pre-application
guidance on our website for customers applying for new connections to make sure it is
accessible to community and local energy groups. As part of this we will publish a
glossary and review pre-application guidance against plain English standards.
Dedicated community energy manager in post since
October 2017
Minimum of 3 events have been delivered in every year
since 2017; 377 people in circulation list by end March
2023.
Year on year increase in website traffic; Community and
local energy pages re-written in 2021 based on customer
research to make it focus on advice and support for
communities.
Minimum of four newsletters have been delivered annually;
website has been re-developed to focus on promoting
advice and support including case studies and guides.
Campaign launched to promote Electricity North West
support to all the communities in the North West
Year on year increase in the number of enquiries received,
over 2000 enquiries handled by our community and local
energy team throughout ED1.
Plain English glossary published.
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Details
We successfully established 25 commitments to bolster the development of community and local energy. This table serves as a
comprehensive update on our progress, and we are proud to report that all 25 actions are either completed or currently in progress.
Action N0
Progress to March 2023
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We will consult on our updated distribution system operation (DSO) strategy and our
plans for digitalisation and data access.
We will improve access to Network Information; We will produce and publish training
material for use of our new GIS functionality.
We will make sure our conversations are solutions focused to do all we can to support
the development of the project. We will use our experience to date to share best practice
with all connections teams to ensure our service is continually improving and addresses
the needs of community and local energy groups.
We will provide regular updates, via presentations at workshops and/or newsletters on
our Leading the North West to net zero Plan.
We will share learning from our case studies, e.g. our zero carbon buildings.
As part of our Leading the North West to net zero plan we are consulting with
stakeholders on how to meet our decarbonisation aspirations as part of our business plan
from 2023 (ED2) and in particular our route to net zero carbon for operational carbon
emissions by 2038, a commitment to identify and measure scope 3 emissions (those
relating to our indirect action such as in our supply chain) from 2023 and to work with our
sustainability panel to identify measures to reduce them.
We will continue to invest in our network to ensure that network capacity is not a barrier
to the connection of low carbon technologies.
We have dedicated support for early project development and
pre-application support through our newly created PACE team.
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Details
Completed in 2020
Our business plan for the 2023-2028 centres around leading
the North West to net zero, committing to making sure the
network is not a barrier to low carbon technologies.
We have set a Science Based Target for our Business
Carbon Footprint to include our Scope 3 emissions, further
details can be viewed in our Environmental Action Plan.
The Go Net Zero section of our website contains lots of
information to help business customers and communities.
We consulted extensively as part of the creation of our DSO
Transition Plan and we remain open to stakeholder feedback.
Get in touch via our webform
Action No
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We will investigate new ways of working for our next price control period (ED2) with the
aim of facilitating the engagement of community and local energy partners in Network
Innovation Allowance (NIA) and Network Innovation Competition (NIC) funded projects.
We will continue to promote all flexible service opportunities to community and local
energy groups and provide dedicated surgeries to improve understanding and facilitate
participation.
We will continue to deliver seed funding groups through our Powering our Communities
fund which is targeted at addressing the main issues our stakeholders are facing,
particularly developing new ways of working.
We will continue to support third parties with innovation projects funded by external
sources with conversations, expertise and moral support as appropriate to the benefits
of the project to Electricity North West.
We will encourage learning between community and local energy groups in our area
by producing case studies of the projects we fund (via Powering our Communities) and
providing a forum of other projects via our events and newsletters.
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Details Progress to March 2023
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We will investigate the viability of purchasing community and local energy.
In total we have provided over £400,000 funding to 33
projects.
Held a call for innovation projects in June 2022 and submitted
two Strategic Innovation Fund bids in partnership with
community energy organisations in November 2022.
Our Community Connects events provide a forum for learning
from other groups and networking.
We are looking for external partners for innovation projects
please get in touch with us if you have an idea you would like
to discuss.
Tenders for flexible services are published twice a year.
Further details can be found on our website.
We are looking for partners to provide renewable energy to our
sites.
Action No
Progress 2020-21
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We will engage community and local energy groups with the development of our
business plan for the next price control period (ED2) which starts in 2023.
We will work with community and local energy stakeholders to develop proposals
that could be included in our next business plan to support the development of the
community and local energy sector in the next price control period (ED2) from 2023.
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Details
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We will pilot working in partnership with a community energy group to deliver a project
at one of our sites.
We will continue to engage on regulation and how it affects our customers and produce
our policy and regulation updates for community and local energy
stakeholders to help stakeholders to understand how policy and regulation
developments may affect the sector.
We are in the process of formalising a partnership with a
community energy business to provide solar PV to at least
one of our depots.
Progress to March 2023
Four regulation and policy updates produced annually;
ongoing support for individual projects.
In consultation with stakeholders we developed proposals to
support community and local energy in ED2 as part of our
business plan submission.
Community and local energy proposals were submitted as
part of the our ED2 business plan. Annex 5: Community and
local energy support
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We will use the evidence we have gathered from our community and local energy
stakeholder engagement to inform our engagement with Ofgem and BEIS. We will
maximise the opportunities we have through our membership of sector bodies,
Community Energy England and Regen to represent the views of the sector in our
region.
Community and local energy proposals were submitted as
part of the our ED2 business plan. Our community energy
manager is on the board of Community Energy England and is
interim-chair.
8. Future plans
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In 2023 we will publish our RIIO-ED2 Community
and Local Energy Strategy, aiming to provide a
comprehensive and well-thought-out plan for the
enhancement of community and local energy
across our region.
It will focus on embedding support for community
and local energy groups as business as usual to
make sure all our communities get the support
they need.
Our commitment to creating a sustainable future
is reflected in our plans to scale up the Powering
our Communities fund. By doing so, we aim to
enable more communities to get involved with the
net zero energy transition.
COMMUNITY AND LOCAL ENERGY STRATEGY ANNUAL REPORT
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In the meantime, stay in touch and keep up to date with
community and local energy activities across the North
West by signing up for our newsletter.
If you are developing a project please get in touch with us
to discuss your plans:
communityandlocalenergy@enwl.co.uk
Sign up to our newsletter to receive quarterly news and
regular updates on our support for community and local
energy.
For information about what is community energy and for
case studies of groups from across the North West take a
look at our website.
Keep in Touch
Electricity North West Limited
Registered Office:
Borron Street
Stockport
Cheshire SK1 2JD
Registered no: 2366949 (England)