Dear Stakeholders,

Welcome to our May newsletter.

This month’s edition demonstrates a busy month of stakeholder engagement with some opportunities to get involved with events over the coming weeks. This month has also seen the establishment of the Independent Stakeholder Advisory Group (ISG) who will ensure that customer and stakeholder views are taken into account as we develop our next business plan for the ED3 period…but more on that next time. Highlights this month include:

•    Advancing a £13 million infrastructure upgrade in Oldham, we continue to invest in the future of our network. 
•    We’re proud to have received a new award recognising the strength of our apprenticeship programme.
•    Launched our largest ever flexibility tender, with £12 million available to support a more responsive energy system. 
•    We also offer a first look at Fractal Flow, our innovative data platform transforming grid management, with an upcoming webinar providing further insights. 
•    We’ve achieved the ISO 22458 Kitemark, affirming our commitment to supporting vulnerable customers. 
•    Finally, working with partners from across the region at UKREiiF in Leeds and at Utility Week Live 2025, our representatives contributed to key discussions on clean energy, flexibility, and regional planning, underscoring our leadership in shaping a sustainable energy future for the North West. 

Energy management to save cost and cut carbon webinar: 28/05/2025 Register here.

Resilient North West Customer Summit: 02/06/2025 Register now.

Fractal Flow SIF Alpha - Show and Tell Webinar 28/05/2025: Register here.

Best wishes, the Stakeholder Engagement Team

Electricity North West is investing £13 million to upgrade 6km of underground power cables in Oldham, enhancing the 132,000-volt network and benefiting over 42,000 homes and businesses. The upgrade will replace older, oil-filled cables with modern infrastructure to support growing demand and enable low carbon technologies like electric vehicles and heat pumps.

“This is a major engineering project that will boost reliability and support Oldham’s future growth,” said Vincent Cranny, Head of Capital Programme Delivery.

Work begins in June, with updates to follow once traffic management plans are confirmed.

This way if you want to know more.

Electricity North West has launched its largest-ever flexibility tender, offering up to £12 million for providers across Lancashire, Greater Manchester, and Cumbria. The tender seeks 897 MW of services across 100 locations, with new opportunities on the low voltage (LV) network opening doors for smaller providers and community projects.

This is a great way for homes, businesses, and communities to play an active role in shaping a smarter, more sustainable energy system. Read more.

Find out how you can get involved here.

Electricity North West has won ‘Best Apprenticeship in Energy and Utilities’ at the 2025 National Apprenticeship Guide Awards. The programme, which has developed over 250 apprentices since 2017, boasts a 90% completion rate and a strong focus on diversity and community engagement. The award highlights the company’s commitment to building a skilled, inclusive workforce for the future.

Learn more about our award-winning apprenticeship programme HERE.

We're delighted to have received our ISO 22458 Kitemark certification which demonstrates our commitment to providing inclusive services, especially for vulnerable customers.

To achieve the certification we had to evidence our services are fair, flexible and accessible to all, and that they minimise the risk of consumer harm.

Our extra care support service is fundamental to this and it's a free service we offer to our customers to receive additional support during a power cut. We also work with a number of partners to offer support with wellbeing, energy and financial advice. You can access more information about how we can support your customers HERE.

This week, Electricity North West was proud to attend the 2025 UK Real Estate Investment and Infrastructure Forum (UKREiiF) in Leeds—an event that brought together over 16,000 delegates from across government, investment, development, and infrastructure sectors.
This year’s forum placed a strong spotlight on the utilities sector, with senior leaders from United Utilities, Yorkshire Water, Southern Water, Canal and River Trust, UK Power Networks, SSE, and Electricity North West contributing to key discussions.
UKREiiF continues to be a vital platform for local and regional authorities to attract private investment and launch regeneration and economic strategies. For Electricity North West, it was an opportunity to demonstrate our commitment to supporting local authority partners and to reinforce our role in delivering a net zero future.

We were proud to partner with:
•    Westmorland and Furness Council, Cumberland Council and Enterprising Cumbria who came together to showcase Cumbria
•    Manchester City Council
•    Lancashire County Council
These partnerships reflect our shared ambition to drive regional growth, support devolution, and deliver on the goals of our ED2 business plan.

As we reflect on a productive few days, we’re excited to follow up on the many valuable conversations and ideas that emerged. Strengthening our relationships with local authorities remains a top priority, and we look forward to continuing this momentum as we work together toward a sustainable, net zero economy.

As we move toward net zero, optimally managing Distributed Energy Resources (DERs) is key. Fractal Flow, a cutting-edge data platform, offers near-real-time visibility of distribution network activity and evolving conflicts to aid the optimal control of DERs.

Join our webinar on Wednesday, May 28 at 10:00, to see how Fractal Flow, developed through a SIF-funded project, helps network operators save millions by streamlining flexibility services and balancing procurement.

📅 Don’t miss out! Learn how this innovative tool could shape the future of grid management and register HERE.

This week also included Utility Week Live 2025 (20th and 21st May) and Electricity North West were represented on both the Innovation Stage and The Energy Flexibility Stage.

Paul Auckland (Head of Economic Regulation and DSO) spoke as part of a discussion on ‘Decarbonising at a local and regional level’, sharing what we are doing to ensure that the shift to clean energy in the North West benefits everyone and is a ‘just transition’, via for example our Social DSO Strategy. DSO Technical lead, Keith Evans (DSO Technical Lead) took part in a discussion around ‘Quantifying the value of Flexibility’  and described how companies can engage with and benefit from our flexibility opportunities as well as the vital role it plays in managing increased capacity demands on the network.

Angela Schorah from our Stakeholder Engagement team also attended and took part in a ‘Regional Energy Strategic Plan’ (RESP) workshop on ‘Bottom up planning to meet local and national needs’. More RESP workshops are planned for this year – we will share details as we have them.

Utility Week Live positions itself as ‘Europe’s only pan-utility exhibition and conference’. The headline this year was ‘Leading the change’.

You can keep-up-to-date with the latest news and opinions from across the organisation and energy industry here.

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.

Read our Stakeholder Engagement Report 2023/24, reflecting our activities in the first year of the RIIO-ED2 price control period (2023-28).

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