Project REACH – Rural Energy and Community Heat – was awarded funding through Round 3 of Ofgem’s Strategic Innovation Fund (SIF) and was delivered by National Grid Electricty Distribution, Regen, Smart Grid Consultancy, Kensa Utilities and VEPod.
Project duration: March 2024 – May 2024
Project leads: Rebecca Ford, Head of demand and felxibility, and George Middlemiss, Net Zero Project Manager
Rural areas face unique challenges on their journey to decarbonization. One of those challenges is the difficulty in installing the required low carbon technologies such as heat pumps and EV chargers. The low voltage cables in many rural areas may be unable to handle the additional loads placed on them by increased electrification and therefore require costly upgrades before these communities are able to connect these technologies.
The aim of REACH was to explore whether novel and modular solutions could provide a way for rural communities to achieve their decarbonization objectives.
Regens role:
Regen was primarily responsible for the community engagement aspect of this project. We supported the project partners to learn more about the rural communities and ultimately seek to identify a handful of communities that could be suitable trial locations.
The outcome:
Overall we engaged with over 70 community stakeholders in National Grids electricity distribution region through our launch event and had over 80 expressions of interest. Following a more detailed expression of interest and selection process, we were able to select seven communities that could be suitable trial locations.
What next:
In the Alpha phase we would look to conduct feasibility studies for the novel and modular solutions to decarbonization in the selected rural communities. In addition, we would look to create an options assessment that would make it easier for a community to self-identify that the REACH solution is the best option for them to achieve their decarbonization objectives.
Regen has been working with Scottish and Southern Electricity Networks (SSEN) to collate evidence on the future electricity load growth on the Outer Hebrides, Inner Hebrides and Orkney. This work will help SSEN to better understand what investment is needed in the islands’ electricity networks, including the subsea cables that connect them to the mainland.
Project duration: October 2023 – February 2024
Project lead: Becky Fowell, Energy Market Analyst
Within their RIIO-ED2 business plan, Scottish and Southern Electricity Networks (SSEN) identified the need to replace or strategically reinforce 15 subsea cables that currently connect various Scottish islands to the mainland. Funding for these cables is being explored through SSENs Hebrides and Orkney Whole System Uncertainty Mechanism (HOWSUM) programme of work, which is being assessed across 2024 and 2025.
The evidence cases for these island groups builds on Regen’s ongoing work to deliver SSEN’s annual Distribution Future Energy Scenarios (DFES) assessments for their North of Scotland licence area. They also build on a similar load growth assessment that Regen completed for the Isle of Wight, in SSEN’s Southern England licence area.
The evidence cases provide a summary of the existing electricity network and existing network constraints, alongside a summary of the potential future electricity load growth out to 2050, categorised by:
The work also provides insight into additional sources of future electricity load from industries that are not currently included within the DFES technology scope, such as:
This study is intended to support SSEN to identify future electricity needs across these Scottish Island groups. This will inform the network investment requirements to enable future uptake of renewable generation and low carbon technologies across the islands, allowing for both net zero and security of supply within the island groups.
SSEN have recently published documentations related to their HOWSUM (Hebrides and Orkney Whole System Uncertainty Mechanism) application on their website.
The evidence cases that Regen has provided for each island group can be found below.
In partnership with Northern Powergrid, Regen provides support to local energy stakeholders in the North East, Yorkshire and Northern Lincolnshire.
Project manager: George Middlemiss
The community energy sector in Northern Powergrid’s region has seen significant developments in the past decade, with a number of key organisations delivering impactful projects and professionalising their organisations, in addition to countless enthusiastic smaller groups continuing to chip away at addressing energy issues in their local area.
Northern Powergrid committed to supporting the sector in 2019, following the publication of its first Community Energy Engagement Strategy. The strategy was developed following consultation of community energy representatives in the region and comprises 26 commitments to community and local energy organisations, from keeping communities informed via a quarterly newsletter to increased face-to-face engagement via a programme of events.
Regen supported the development of this strategy and has worked with Northern Powergrid since then, to help it deliver on those 26 commitments through the Community Energy Engagement Programme. This includes in-person forums, online training sessions, quarterly newsletters and the Net Zero Community Energy Fund. Recordings of the online training sessions can be found here.
The 2024 Community Energy Engagement Programme:
If you have any questions about the programme, or would like to be involved, please reach out to George Middlemiss.
You can learn more about Northern Powergrid and its work supporting community energy here.
If you want to hear more about community energy, consider signing up to Regen’s monthly community energy newsletter here.
Funded by Devon County Council, Regen provides support to the Devon Community Energy Network, aiding ongoing collaboration of key organisations in the region and maximising their impact.
Project manager: George Middlemiss
The Devon Community Energy Network (DCEN) is network of community energy stakeholders in Devon and the South West, bringing together community energy organisations, local authorities, businesses and other interested individuals and organisations.
The network meets quarterly to discuss emerging issues, share key updates and collaborate. One of the four meetings is the Spring Gathering. This event is an annual institution and provides a key opportunity for the network to pause, check in on their struggles and successes, regroup and look for new areas to collaborate.
Regen supports DCEN by providing administrative resources to support the smooth running of the quarterly meetings and shared Google Group. When needed, Regen has helped to organise and run the annual Spring Gathering, most recently in 2023.
Regen’s work with DCEN fed into the Power Allotments project with Devon Energy Collective. Power Allotments aimed to engage and encourage communities and individuals across Devon to identify a five-acre space in their local area for a biodiverse community-owned renewable power project.
Regen also supported early development of the community energy sector in Devon via the three-year, Esmée Fairbairn Foundation-funded Community Energy Accelerator programme. The programme involved running a network of over 250 community energy organisations and providing one-on-one technical and engagement support to 32 communities. This played an instrumental role in establishing Devon’s community energy sector and the creation of the network.
Regen’s ongoing support for DCEN is funded by Devon County Council.
The network is always open to new members – find out more on its website here.
If you want to hear more about community energy, consider signing up to our community energy newsletter here.
Regen worked with climate charity Possible and Community Energy England to explore the viability of combining community wind schemes with electrified heating technology to improve the affordability of energy bills, creating a replicable pathway to end reliance on gas.
Project duration: July 2023 – February 2024
Project manager: Jack Adkins
Project manager:Poppy Maltby
Last year, the number of households in fuel poverty in England stood at 3.17 million (13%) and the fuel poverty gap was an average of £417 per household. One of the main recommendations from the Committee on Fuel Poverty’s (CFP) Annual Report 2023 was to deliver “a fair transition to net zero that does not increase fuel poverty”, by seeking to “deploy low-carbon technologies at least cost, best payback” as part of an Energy Affordability Strategy. In this context, onshore wind emerges as a pivotal player, offering a sustainable and cost-effective solution in achieving the CFP’s recommendation while working towards a decarbonised future.
Regen worked with Community Energy England in supporting UK climate charity Possible to explore how low-carbon electric heat technology, such as heat pumps installed in the community or heat networks, powered by locally owned wind could provide affordable, secure energy and a replicable pathway to end reliance on gas while cutting costs and supporting communities.
This project involved:
The resulting report, Wind-powered Heat: Powering clean heat with clean energy to cut costs and emissions, can be downloaded here.
Somerset Council commissioned Regen to develop a county-wide energy plan that would forge a roadmap to achieving its Climate Emergency Strategy objectives. It would identify investment projects and establish an evidence base for future partnerships and funding opportunities as well as set out how the council might work with community energy organisations, the private sector and other stakeholders to invest and grow renewable energy in Somerset.
Project duration: May 2023 – March 2024
Project lead: Tamsyn Lonsdale-Smith, Senior Energy Analyst
The Somerset Energy Investment Plan covers all of the geographic area of Somerset and addresses the Somerset Climate Emergency Strategy’s commitment to develop an energy strategy, which follows three key objectives:
The project involved several work packages, including a GIS database of renewable energy opportunities, an assessment of the Somerset energy system and associated emissions, and analysis of council-owned assets and locally owned renewable generation to benchmark against targets.
The second phase was to deliver an energy roadmap to reach net zero carbon goals out to 2030, 2040 and 2050. A review of policy commitments informed the development of a strategic low-carbon energy pathway that utilises local opportunity to reduce emissions in line with the council’s ambitious goals.
The project also included an economic benefits assessment that identifies investment projects and an evidence base for future partnerships and funding opportunities.
The final report was published at the end of March 2024.
The Power Allotments, Devon project was set up by Regen and the Devon Energy Collective to engage and encourage communities and individuals across Devon to identify a 5 acre space in their local area for a biodiverse community-owned renewable power project.
Over the course of 12 months to April 2023, funded by Devon County Council, community-minded people concerned about climate change came together and, using the mapping tools and guidance provided by the Power Allotments project, put forward potential generation projects.
In total, 73 sites were submitted and examined for a variety of factors such as site orientation, road access, network connection and environmental and heritage impacts. Part of this process also involved engaging key stakeholders for information and advice. The outcome was a top list of 15 sites that were visited in person and of these, seven that were selected as high priority development opportunities.
The project concluded that although many local people have both the enthusiasm and the knowledge needed to find suitable power generation sites, there are significant hurdles to overcome before new community owned energy projects at this scale can be built. Current market conditions mean that project installation and finance costs heavily outweigh the expected long-term income from power sales, making the standard business model unviable. Difficulties with network connections also block project development. This is because of a highly constrained network in the region, costly export limitations and long delays and high costs due to planned infrastructure upgrades. More work is required to find an alternative route to market which may require legislative changes to government policy, changes to the way these types of projects are treated by the network operator or innovation around local supply models, virtual power sales or corporate partnerships.
Ultimately, community energy needs more support to help get projects off the ground and into the hands of local people.
Read more about what we learnt in our Final Report found below and here.
Supported by Team Devon’s COVID-19 Economic Recovery and Business Prospectus Funding.
The PRIDE project aims to improve how local planning and network investment decisions are made to fast-track the infrastructure and low-carbon technology deployment at a regional level to deliver net zero.
Project duration: October 2023 – March 2024
Project lead: Mollie Atherton
Planning Regional Infrastructure in a Digital Environment, or PRIDE, is a Strategic Innovation Fund project being run by a consortium of partners including Regen, the West Midlands Combined Authority, Advanced Infrastructure, National Grid Electricity Distribution and National Grid ESO.
Exploring new digital planning tools, governance and processes, the PRIDE project aims to improve how local planning and network investment decisions are made to fast-track the infrastructure and low-carbon technology deployment at a regional level to deliver net zero.
The PRIDE project is at the Alpha stage of the SIF process. In this stage it will be exploring three key elements:
The project follows on from the Discovery phase, in which Regen supported the West Midlands Combined Authority to engage with local authorities about how a digital planning tool could help improve local energy planning processes and what data and functionality they would like to see in such a tool. The Alpha phase will run from October 2023 until March 2024, at which point Regen and the consortium partners will submit a bid for the final Beta phase to continue to explore the governance system and how learnings can contribute to the development of the RESP.
For further information on the project, please contact Mollie Atherton.
Regen have been supporting the West Midlands Combined Authority (WMCA) with its Planning Regional Infrastructure in a Digital Environment (PRIDE) project.
Project duration: May– June 2023
Project lead: Mollie Atherton
PRIDE is a collaborative project between the WMCA, National Grid Electricity Distribution and Advanced Infrastructure. Its goal is to improve how local planning decisions can influence network investment to accelerate the deployment of low carbon technologies and decarbonise heat and transport.
This project explored how a whole systems digital planning tool could help local authorities develop flexible and lower cost local area energy plans, and a governance structure that would ensure those local area energy plans are embedded into network investment decisions.
In our role, we delivered an in-person workshop and online webinar with the local authorities in the West Midlands Combined Authority region that explored:
· The opportunities and challenges of local area energy planning.
· How the whole systems digital planning tool could help local authorities develop local area energy plans.
· Governance structures that provide a platform for better engagement between local authorities and energy networks.
It was important to us that local and regional needs were being considered throughout the project. We designed the workshops to provide a platform on which local authorities can share their challenges with project partners as well as other local authorities to encourage peer-to-peer learning and support.
This project formed part of the Discovery phase of PRIDE, which finished in June 2023. We have supported the project partners submit the SIF funding bid for the next phase of the PRIDE project, during which we will join the consortium as a project partner and help continue to support the development of the whole systems planning tool and trial the governance structures with local authorities and infrastructure providers in the WMCA region.
For further information on the project, please contact Mollie Atherton.
This project forms part of Prospering from the energy revolution (PFER) challenge, and the aims of this project are to:
The project involves a review of the existing decarbonisation and energy planning processes, with the aim to make these faster, cheaper, more agile and deliverable for local authorities.
Through the project we will also be working to achieve greater consistency, enabling regional and local activity to be aggregated into a national picture of local net zero plans and activity.
This project will be running until the end of March 2023.
As part of this work, we are keen to hear views about Local Area Energy Plans (LAEPs) or local decarbonisation pathway plans and how you feel these processes can best support local areas to accelerate the delivery of net zero
We created the survey to get feedback and evidence from stakeholders, both local and regional government, as well as wider stakeholders who are working closely with local areas. The survey closed on 11 November.
Regen has worked with Scottish and Southern Electricity Networks (SSEN) and the Isle of Wight Council to develop a load growth evidence case to enable investment in the island’s electricity network.
Project duration: May 2022 – June 2023
Project lead: Ray Arrell, Head of Future Energy Systems
The study’s core output was to provide a written evidence case report, to support SSEN’s business plan application to Ofgem, to unlock additional investment in the electricity network supplying/on the Isle of Wight. This investment will unlock capacity to enable the Isle of Wight’s future growth/aspirations to expand renewable generation, low carbon technology adoption, electrification of other sources of demand and wider net-zero ambitions.
The study built on the analysis and granular future scenario projections that Regen produced for SSEN’s Southern England licence area, through the latest edition of their Distribution Future Energy Scenarios (DFES) assessment: https://www.regen.co.uk/project/ssen-distribution-future-energy-scenarios/
In May 2023, Regen worked with Isle of Wight Council and SSEN to publish the summarising report for the electricity load growth analysis and evidence case for additional network investment:
For further information on this project, please contact Ray Arrell, Head of Future Energy Systems, rarrell@regen.co.uk
Regen is working with Plymouth City Council to review the decarbonisation opportunities in the Plymouth waterfront area.
Project duration: April 2022 – August 2022
Project lead: Olly Frankland
The path to decarbonise the UK will require local authorities to set out specific plans to decarbonise their areas based on their unique resources and geography. Regen is working with a range of local authorities and stakeholders in order to progress this area. For example, the Local delivery of clean heat project and established Distribution Future Energy Scenarios (DFES) delivery for network operators.
Regen is supporting Plymouth City Council (PCC) to develop a strategy for decarbonising the waterfront area in Plymouth. The analysis aims to support PCC’s ambition, set out in its Climate Emergency Declaration, for Plymouth to be net zero carbon by 2030.
Our approach uses concepts underpinning local area energy planning together with the scenario planning framework and data used in the DFES for Western Power Distribution (WPD).
The project is funded by the Community Renewal Fund.
We are delivering the work in two phases:
For further information on this project, please contact Olly Frankland, Senior Project Manager, ofrankland@regen.co.uk
