Dear stakeholders,

September is the start of a new season and as schools and universities return, we have also welcomed our new apprentice intake – with 31 new colleagues joining to start their journey in the industry.

We are also delighted to be awarded an addition £5.5 million for our innovative CoolDown project to investigate the impact of air conditioning on our network.

This month we have been particularly busy hearing from you. We have held three advisory panel meetings, two major local authority engagement events, and three future focused deliberative customer panels within the month. These have provided SP ENW with critical stakeholder insights and feedback into how we can deliver on our commitments to local authorities, businesses, academic institutions, the environment and our customers and region. If you haven’t already registered check out our DSO conference in October.

With storm season also approaching, Storm Amy the year’s first named storm is due to impact the UK this weekend. SP ENW are preparing for any damage to the network with extra resources across our teams. Please call 105 if you experience a power cut. It is a timely reminder to think about the extra care and support that SP ENW can provide this time of year. Read more about how we can provide extra care

Also as the month closes NESO have launched the tRESP consultation providing a stepping stone towards a new strategic planning approach for electricity and gas networks across Great Britain.

Register now to attend our DSO Conference for 2025! This event is being held from 10:00 to 15:00 on 29 October 2025 at the North Lakes Hotel, Ullswater Rd CA11 8QT in Penrith. The event is designed to provide a comprehensive update on our progress over the past six months and a forward-looking view of the next six months.

With a focus on flexibility and data, the event will showcase how we are advancing our DSO initiatives. You'll have the opportunity to engage in discussions, share feedback and explore how our DSO activities are directly benefiting you, as well as how we plan to continue delivering value through enhanced flexibility services and greater data transparency. We look forward to seeing you there. 

Register to attend here.

SP ENW is committed to ensuring that critical skills shortages in the energy sector are being fulfilled. This month, we welcomed 31 new apprentices into our state-of-the-art Training Academy in Blackburn, as part of our apprenticeship programme. 

Stephanie Trubshaw, SP Electricity North West’s chief operating officer, said: “Green growth is at the forefront of what the business wants to achieve, and apprentices play a key role in achieving our goals.

“SP Electricity North West’s investment in the network is absolutely crucial as the reliance on electricity is only increasing. It’s an exciting time to be a part of the industry and all of our apprentices have a bright future ahead of them.”

More than 100 apprentices are within the business, at various stages of their apprenticeship career. Since the programme launched back in 2017, more than 250 have been trained and developed by SP Electricity North West. Later this year, SP Electricity North West will open its window for hiring its 2026 intake and anyone interested is encouraged to register for early updates.

NESO has launched the transitional Regional Energy Strategic Planning (tRESP) consultation. They want your feedback on: Regional energy contexts,net zero pathways, planning assumptions for DNOs, and strategic investment needs. 

tRESP is a stepping stone towards a new strategic planning approach for electricity and gas networks across Great Britain. It supports the next round of electricity distribution business plans (ED3: 2028–2033) and will be published by January 2026. SP ENW, alongside NESO have worked collaboratively with stakeholders since March and we highly value your feedback to shape the final version of the tRESP to ensure your needs are met.

Read more and provide your response via NESO's website by 23:59 on the 3rd of November. If you would like to engage further with NESO, they are also hosting RESP Forums from 13–23 Oct: News and events | National Energy System Operator

Alternatively, if you would like to share your views with us, get in touch with the SP ENW stakeholder team: stakeholderengagement@enwl.co.uk.

We’re attending Westmorland and Furness' first EV Event: Let's Go EV on Saturday 18th October, 10am -2pm  Kendal Leisure Centre. 

Come and speak to the team about connecting your new EV charger or anything else related to grid connections and capacity.

As well as investing in our network through capital investment for increased reliability and resilience, we also investigate innovative technology to more effectively utilise the network. We've recently been awarded an extra £5.5 million of extra funding for our innovative CoolDown project, from Ofgem's Strategic Innovation Fund. The project is currently investigating the effects of air conditioning on the network. Research has indicated that air conditioning use is increasing, which will add extra stress on the power network over the coming years. 

In order to stay ahead of the curve, SP ENW is investing in its groundbreaking CoolDown project, to find out more about how increased aircon use will affect the network. Results from the project so far have shown that by 2050, 39 per cent of all buildings in the SP Electricity North West licence area will overheat and 30 per cent of them will install space cooling (SC) such as air conditioning. This is a marked increase on 2023 where only nine per cent overheated and five per cent had SC installed. While SC is already prevalent in commercial buildings, customer research conducted in the first phase revealed a growing domestic trend with 20 per cent of households considering installing SC in the next two years.

This month, SP Electricity North West hosted two successful engagement sessions with Local Authority (LA) representatives, one in Manchester and another in Kendal, bringing together key stakeholders from across Greater Manchester, Lancashire, and Cumbria. 

These sessions focused on strengthening collaboration around energy infrastructure planning, investment, and delivery.

We explored: Capital Investment Plans with updates on strategic energy planning from the National Energy System Operator ahead of the tRESP consultation. Resilience Building through joined-up approaches to electrification, street works coordination, and community support. Meaningful Engagement—listening first-hand to LA priorities and challenges to shape our processes and improve outcomes.

We’re grateful to all who attended and shared their insights. Your feedback is vital as we continue to improve how we work with local authorities to deliver a resilient, future-ready energy network.

Key Themes Identified included: High Priority: Grid connections, EV charging infrastructure, smart data services, and reinforcement delays. Strategic Focus: Long-term investment planning, fuel poverty support, and community energy initiatives. Targeted Impact Areas: LA resource gaps, technology barriers, flexible services, and housing sector engagement.

We’re committed to keeping the conversation going and we’ll be reaching out to Local Authorities to: Share tailored updates on priority themes and investment plans; Offer follow-up discussions to explore specific local challenges; Provide access to new tools and data resources to support planning and delivery.

If you’d like to arrange a follow-up meeting or have specific feedback to share, please contact our stakeholder engagement team at stakeholderengagement@enwl.co.uk

This month we held three of our Stakeholder Advisory Panels for Q2 24/25. Thankyou to all panel members who attended and engaged with us - we really appreciate and value your feedback and discussion on the topics covered.

Our Advisory Panels ensure that local and national stakeholders can engage with us on the issues that matter, and provide a conduit to holding SP ENW to account on its Business Plan Commitments. Our Q2 meetings are typically where we cover our 24/25 full year results and answer questions from stakeholders on our progress.

On 1 September we held the first in-person meeting of the Digital Futures Panel, which covered Digital Grid, Cyber resilience and Telecoms resilience.

On 4 September, the Environment & Sustainability Panel met online and discussed our Business Plan Commitments, heard an update on our Environment Report, and our work on STEM education to inspire the next generation of electricity sector experts. 

Finally to round off the month, the Economic Growth Panel met online on the 19th of September and discussed our Business Plan Commitments, our Street works programme, and a look at our DSO programme, as well as the benefits that flexibility services can provide to local businesses. 

Our Advisory Panels are comprised of local subject matter expert stakeholders from key areas of the North West - businesses, Local Authorities, academic institutions, and advocacy groups. We highly value the feedback provided by panel members, and we look forward to reconvening in Q3 later this year. 

SP Electricity North West is proud to announce a raft of capital investment programmes to ensure our network remains resilient and reliable. 

We're investing £1.9 million in Rochdale to replace older oil-filled cables with new clean cable technology. Along with being more environmentally friendly, this network upgrade will also improve network capacity in the area. Our Street works team has engaged closely with local businesses and customers to ensure they are well informed of the works ahead. 

In Stockport, we've committed to £10 million worth of underground cable upgrades, to boost network resilience. In what is a major engineering task, work will take place beneath the River Tame, running from Reddish Vale Country Park to Broadstone Hall Road South. Diverting the cables and improving the interconnections on the network will ensure it is reliable and resilient for customers for years to come. 

This month, our capital investment project in Barrow moves into a new phase. Engineers from SP ENW are well under way with replacing 28km of underground electricity cables across five separate circuits, increasing capacity in the area, which in future will enable Barrow to increase its electricity use. As always, we have engaged closely with locals in Barrow and worked with local MP Michelle Scrogham to monitor our progress and keep disruption to a minimum by the least disruptive times of the day to carry out the work. 

If you are interested in finding out more about any of our stakeholder advisory panels, or if there is any topic you’d like to see in the next edition of this newsletter, please get in touch with us at stakeholderengagement@enwl.co.uk.