What products or services does your company offer that can support local authorities to reach their net zero targets? How is your impact measured?

The Regional Insights team provide pre-application support to local authorities within the Northern Powergrid licence area. By having a dedicated NPg technical resource inputting into projects and workstreams, the team ensures local authorities can have more meaningful conversations with collaborators, make more informed decisions from the outset of their projects, and ensure effective delivery of net zero projects. 

We continue to develop tools to allow local authorities to self-serve. Our LAEP+ tool is an intuitive planning tool aimed at local authority officers and their partners to aid with their net-zero ambitions and allow long term decarbonisation planning. The tool combines Northern Powergrid open data with external datasets and resources to provide an intuitive whole systems energy planning tool that is free for our local authorities to use.

Our Mass LCT tool (released this year) will allow Npg stakeholders to request network assessments to be performed on Mass LCT installations across the distribution network. This will highlight which properties may be able to connect immediately and which may require reinforcement, providing local authorities with some quick indications from which to better plan their connections journey.

Our connection surgeries are a free service that allow our stakeholders to meet with senior design engineers to discuss the feasibility of potential projects. The sessions are held online and offer key insights into our network and potential design solutions. 

The open data portal ensures our stakeholders can easily access key datasets that will allow them to take a data-driven approach to decision making throughout their net-zero projects. The portal embraces digitalisation and provides transparency on energy forecasting, network utilisation and our decision making, giving customers the information they need to empower them to deliver the opportunities net zero and the energy transition brings.

What sort of local authorities do you think your product or service could help?

We are committed to supporting all local authorities within our license area. 

Can you give us an example of a local authority you have worked with? What challenge were they facing, what was your intervention and what was the outcome?

The North East Combined Authority (NECA) was having an issue with Local Authorities in their area not being willing to approve installs due to concerns around O-PEN devices. We collected queries, arranged a meeting for the following week and clarified the relevant guidance/NPg policy positions. This allowed NECA to deploy £1.187 million via the Electric Vehicle Pavement Channels fund.

What is the cost of your support to local authorities?

There are no costs associated with the support Northern Powergrid provide for local authorities.

“Northern Powergrid have consulted with local authorities, listened to our concerns and taken fast and appropriate action to solve the challenges we were facing."

Maggie Bosanquet, Strategic Decarbonisation Lead

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For queries, please contact Jonathan Burr at jonathan.burr@northernpowergrid.com.