Dear Mark

Please find below the May 2021 edition of the SP Energy Networks ICE monthly newsletter highlighting the important work we are doing to Prepare for Net Zero.

Electric Vehicles

ConnectMore

We are looking forward to this summer when SP Energy Networks Project Charge team will be introducing ConnectMore. This is an online tool which will designed to speed up the decision-making process around EV chargepoint installation for local councils, site owners, property developers and chargepoint operators, amongst others. This will help local communities reach their decarbonisation goals and supports the move to Net Zero.

You can find out more about the Charge Project here.


Heat

Green Recovery Funding supports the decarbonisation of heat

SP Energy Networks has unlocked £61.7m of funding to help UK households on the journey to Net Zero through the Green Recovery Fund. This will support the acceleration of the decarbonisation of heating, as well as electrification of transport and connection of renewable energy onto the grid.

This investment will create over 650MW of electrical capacity across our networks and will support around 4,000 domestic heat pumps as well as numerous other significant connections.

Frank Mitchell said: “These projects were selected because they are shovel-ready, can be delivered at speed and will help our communities to take important steps forward on their journey to Net Zero.”

Find out more about the Green Recovery Fund here.


Flexibility

SP Energy Networks Flexibility Services Forum

We were delighted to host our Flexibility Forum on May 25th and be joined by guest speakers Lee Priestley, Commercial Director at Conrad Energy and Arun Anand, Founder CEO of Electric Miles. The forum provided a lot of useful insight and customers learnt about our current flexibility tender competition, our tender process and how we manage flexibility services.

We hope to see you at the next Flexibility Forum, and you can sign up for a variety of future events here.

What is flexibility and why is it important?

Essentially, its where we pay a third party to operate their assets in a way that can benefit the network. We’re contracting with all sorts of flexible resources; such as generators, storage providers, aggregators of domestic low carbon technologies (LCTs) and even suppliers. Under these arrangements, we’d ask them to either lower or increase their use depending on the needs of the network, to allow us to free up capacity for use elsewhere or to utilise excess generation.

The needs of our customers and communities are constantly changing, so the requirements of our electricity network are too. We’re forecasting more and more constraints as a result of the uptake of LCTs, particularly during periods of high demand. Flexibility therefore provides an agile, smart means of balancing our network to solve the challenges we face.

And whilst there are clearly benefits for us, there are also benefits for our customers too. By deploying flexibility, we’re able to defer or avoid costly reinforcement, thus minimising the impact on consumer bills. And for those providing flexibility, there is also the added bonus of being paid for that service.

Flexibility is also a key enabler to maximising the number of connections that can be made to the network, all of which contribute to achieving net zero.

We hope to see you at the next Flexibility Forum, and you can sign up for a variety of future events here.

Here is a short video showing a typical day in the life of a customer in a flexibility world.


Innovation

iDentify

SP Energy Networks are proud to be partnering with app developer Minsait, an Indra company, to create iDentify. This brand new technology combines AI technology with a smart phone camera to allow customers to recognise network assets. This will directly enhance our customers experience and allow SP Energy Networks to recognise the installation of low carbon technologies.

Find out more about the innovative iDentify here.


Community Projects

Green Economy funded EV vehicles support local community

Cumbernauld Action on Care of the Elderly (CACE) has officially launched two electric minibuses in Cumbernauld thanks to funding from our Green Economy Fund. The minibuses will offer a door-to-door transport and enable CACE to continue to vital community work they do. SP Energy Networks are proud to support this Lanarkshire community group and will continue to provide support to the customers and communities we serve.

You can read more about this story here and find out more about the Green Economy fund here.

Kind regards,

Stakeholder & Community Engagement Team