It has been another busy month for Electricity North West stakeholder engagement: We held two of our Advisory Panels, an event at Westminster for regional investment leaders, and a Biodiversity site visit.

We also announced a £11.6 million investment pipeline for Salford to roll out more underground power lines for increased network resilience and £4million investment in Lancashire. 

Whilst we are looking forward to a quiet and safe summer period we are also planning some great events for you in the autumn…see below for details of the Local Authority event but watch this space for more.

Electricity North West is committed to fostering relationships and making connections between key local authority representatives and industry leaders to support new and innovative projects and initiatives through regional ambition. To enable this, we're hosting stakeholder engagement events in Greater Manchester and Cumbria, to bring local authority colleagues and representatives together. We want you to share insights, gather local knowledge, and improve longer term planning relationships for better regional ambition outcomes. 

In addition, we will also hear from representatives from the National Energy System Operator (NESO) on Regional Energy Strategic Planning (RESP and tRESP) plans. We want to know how best to support local authorities in this space, and this event will help us gain valuable insights into what specific support we can provide in this space. 

Please register below:

- 10 September at Aviva Studios (Greater Manchester)

- 18 September at Castle Green Hotel, Kendal (Lancashire and Cumbria)

Please look out for a formal invitation in your inbox soon. 

Your attendance at the event is highly valued, and will enable Electricity North West to more effectively support local authorities to engage with industry stakeholders for better regional development and project outcomes. We hope you are able to come along!

We held our Q1 Economic Growth Advisory Panel, chaired by Elise Wilson, and hosted at Bruntwood SciTech, 111 Piccadilly. The panel was attended by key stakeholders from across the North West, from local authority representatives to electric vehicle infrastructure businesses and flexibility providers. We heard about how Electricity North West is investing in automation and innovative technology such as LineSIGHT which gives fast and accurate reports of potential faults and downed power lines on the network, ensuring a speedy response ahead of a potential outage.The panel also heard about our capital delivery programme, which targets investment to keep our network resilient in key areas of the North West.

The panel shared useful insights from business leaders and local authority representatives which will be taken on board to ensure that our business plan continues to deliver for economic growth in the North West. We ended with a rooftop tour to see the growth of Manchester in recent years. 

Our Digital Futures Panel met virtually this month, with key presentations from our IT and digital technology experts. The panel heard about our Digital Strategy and Action Plan, which sets out how Electricity North West can utilise open access to data and AI for improved flexibility and trading services, with better claims and connection processes. The future of the Digital Grid was also discussed, looking at the network as a wider, more automated system that can respond to weather events and changes in power demand dynamically. 

Electricity North West Biodiversity Manager hosted members of our Environment and Sustainability Panel at a site visit in Penwortham this month. The field trip was a fantastic opportunity to showcase the impact of work being carried out to protect and enhance biodiversity, while connecting with a diverse group of visitors.

We welcomed representatives from local authorities, universities and biodiversity advocacy groups, including Salford University, United Utilities, Active Lancashire, Lancaster City Council, plus colleagues from our own biodiversity team. They provided valuable insights and advice around the work we are doing, to ensure that our sites continue to be managed with a key biodiversity mindset. Biodiversity is a key concern for Electricity North West and we are committed to ensuring that local areas of natural beauty and key infrastructure sites are able to support rich indigenous wildlife where the proliferation of non-native pests and invasive plant species is minimised through active biodiversity measures. 

We’re planting 10,000 trees every year from 2023 – 2028. This will strengthen biodiversity and enhance green spaces across our local areas.

Find out more in our Environment Report

Economic growth and enabling access to the electricity network was the theme as North West leaders backed calls for further region-wide investment in the power network.

The calls came at an Electricity North West hosted event in Westminster with regional MPs, industry representatives, government, and Ofgem, where it shared further details of its proposed additional £200m investment plan through March 2028.

Read more

A start date has been confirmed for a major electrical project taking place across Oldham, as announced on 19 May. Engineers from Electricity North West will start work on its £13m project next month. Six kilometres of underground cables will be replaced which will transform the 132-000-volt electricity infrastructure throughout Oldham and the surrounding areas.

More than 42,000 homes and businesses will benefit from the new electricity supply which will see older, oil-filled cables replaced with more modern environmentally-friendly cables.

Read more

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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