DSO - Why now?
Climate change is an urgent and growing concern. Targets for reaching net zero have been enshrined in law. More and more consumers are demanding clean, reliable, and affordable electricity.
The circumstances the electricity market operates in are changing, and so is our customers’ relationship with electricity. Demand for it is growing as more drivers charge EVs, homes will move away from gas to heat pumps. But customers are generating electricity too, with huge growth in solar panels and battery storage, and networks are changing radically to meet this growing demand.
Getting familiar with some key DSO terms
New DSO services will result in lower costs per unit of energy, opportunities for new markets for customers to buy and sell clean energy, and viable local energy solutions that will drive decarbonisation at the community level. We’ve outlined the key enablers of this change below, which you will see referenced throughout this Action Plan.
What the future looks like
During the current ‘ED2’ price control period, we’re identifying parts of our licence areas where solutions on the distribution network can help speed up connections, and reinforce the network for everyone, which plans for new infrastructure move forward.
Through our Distribution Future Energy Scenarios (DFES) we forecast future demand growth and the uptake of Low Carbon Technologies, renewables, and other Distributed Energy Resources (DER).
The forecasts ensure our approach is tailored to individual communities by reflecting local environmental influences, the existing local network infrastructure, and societal influences, like age, employment, and economic factors. DFES inform us how demands on networks are likely to change. And this helps us plan how we’ll support customers through network investment or flexibility.
DSO will create opportunities for everyone
Using our real-world experience from working with stakeholders in DSO trials we have developed a set of customer-aligned scenarios, based on the typical features and needs that different kinds of customers will expect to be fulfilled by DSO. We have aligned with Ofgem and grouped our DSO functions into three core areas:
