Electrification, Clean Power 2030 and the rising importance of distribution networks

The local grid – once largely invisible to consumers and operating quietly in the background of the energy system – is increasingly becoming one of the critical enablers of the UK’s transition to a low-carbon economy.

Ensuring that electricity networks can support this shift will require not only investment in physical infrastructure, but also new approaches to planning, digitalisation and collaboration across the wider energy system.

To better understand how expectations of distribution networks are evolving, SSEN has been sounding out stakeholders from across the energy sector, including policymakers, energy companies, technology providers and organisations working directly with communities. The insights they've shared offer a valuable perspective on how the role of distribution networks is changing, and what the sector believes networks must prioritise as electrification accelerates. As one energy policy advisor notes, “distribution networks are increasingly becoming the point where the ambitions of the energy transition meet the realities of infrastructure on the ground.”

“Distribution networks are increasingly becoming the point where the ambitions of the energy transition meet the realities of infrastructure on the ground.”

Energy policy advisor

Government ambitions such as Clean Power 2030 and programmes including the Warm Homes Plan should drive the installation of millions of low-carbon technologies across homes and businesses, from heat pumps and electric vehicles to solar panels and battery storage. At the same time, electricity demand is beginning to shift in new ways, as large charging hubs, electrified industrial processes and data-intensive digital infrastructure put new pressures on local networks.

For distribution network operators, this means their role can no longer be confined to maintaining infrastructure and responding to connection requests as they arise. Instead, they must increasingly coordinate how millions of distributed technologies interact with the grid, balancing demand and generation while ensuring that constraints do not slow the pace of electrification.

Alongside these technical challenges sits a broader question about how consumers themselves experience the energy transition. “Most homeowners don’t really know what a distribution network operator is. If they get a letter from the network, it often just goes straight in the bin,” according to one director of a low-carbon technology company. For its part, SSEN Distribution has been working to raise its profile with its customers, to better inform them of the role it has in enabling decarbonisation through the use of flex and the planning of network upgrades to boost capacity.

One perspective offered by industry observers draws comparisons with the transformation of the telecommunications sector during the late twentieth century. Eric Brown, a former telecoms executive, notes that the sector underwent a profound transformation as digital technologies shifted intelligence away from physical hardware and into software platforms capable of delivering complex services. Electricity networks, he suggests, may now be on a similar journey.

“Most homeowners don’t really know what a distribution network operator is. If they get a letter from the network, it often just goes straight in the bin.”

Director of a low-carbon technology company

However, telecoms innovations created products that people actively wanted, whereas many energy technologies do not generate the same level of excitement. “It’s quite hard to get excited about replacing a boiler with a heat pump”. This is why SSEN focuses its marketing and public messaging on the benefits of adopting low-carbon technologies in terms when it comes to the longer-term savings their use is expected to result in.

In practice, however, the transition will not unfold evenly. Electrification will be shaped by millions of individual decisions made by households, businesses and communities as they adopt new technologies over time. As a result, demand for electricity – and the pressure placed on local infrastructure – is likely to vary significantly between regions and neighbourhoods.

Several stakeholders highlighted the importance of ensuring that these variations do not create barriers to participation in the energy transition.

Ensuring that the electricity system can support this transformation, while maintaining reliability, fairness and efficiency, is therefore one of the defining challenges facing the sector over the coming decade.

And it is a challenge that begins, quite literally, at the level of the local electricity network. As one community energy specialist argues, the transition will only succeed if local people feel part of the change: “Communities need to see tangible benefits from electrification, otherwise it risks feeling like something that is being done to them rather than with them.”

A Utility Week Intelligence report in association with Scottish & Southern Electricity Networks