What is Local Area Energy Planning?
As the UK increases its uptake of low carbon technologies, transport and heating, communities find themselves in the driving seat to help plan the infrastructure that will facilitate Net Zero at a local level.
Local Area Energy Plans (LAEPs) set out the changes and resources needed locally to achieve this in a specific timeframe. Creating these plans is an opportunity to explore potential pathways for achieving Net Zero cost-effectively and given wider socio-economic considerations, including energy costs and security; community buy-in; and economic development opportunities. Led by local authorities, the process can involve a wide range of stakeholders: community energy organisations, Net Zero Hubs, residents, and industry. You can find out more on the LAEP approach via the Energy Systems Catapult website here.
While the Welsh Government has mandated the development of LAEPs and Scottish Government the development of Local Heat and Energy Efficiency Strategies (LHEES), there is currently no mandate to develop LAEPs in England or Scotland. Despite that, Energy Systems Catapult estimates that 1 in 6 local authorities across the UK are developing LAEPs. On a licence area level, we’ve heard keen ambition to reach Net Zero from our local authority stakeholders, the majority of whom have declared climate emergencies.
How can we help?
We have committed to providing support to local authorities in our licence areas to develop a coordinated and effective delivery strategy for Whole System and Net Zero initiatives that interact with our network.
Our dedicated Net Zero Engagement Specialists, who are part of the Whole System team, will support local authorities in our licence areas by providing regular input, network analysis, and whole system thinking to their energy planning.
Even if your organisation is not currently developing a full Local Area Energy Plan, we’re still here to offer support on more targeted plans you may be progressing that interact with our network.
Our support
We offer different means of support to local authorities planning their decarbonisation pathways or related developments.
With whom do we work?
We work with local authorities in our licence areas on their long-term local planning efforts. See the map below for regions within your local authority area that are served by our network:
Source: Office for National Statistics licensed under the Open Government Licence v.3.0. Contains OS data Ⓒ Crown copyright and database right 2024.
LENZA users also get access to further datasets – produced by SSEN Distribution and others – to support your energy planning. You can express your interest in getting access to LENZA via our LENZA webpage.
How do we use local insight?
Information about local planning and development is a crucial input to our ongoing strategic network development planning.
This insight informs our Distribution Future Energy Scenarios, which forecasts how load on our network may evolve out to 2050. We then use these forecasts to see when and where our network will require additional capacity to enable local plans.
We've published DFES guides for local authorities to help you get the most out of our forecasts and see how your local plans and our network plans interact:
Are you planning your organisation’s path to Net Zero? Get in touch with us to discuss at whole.system.distribution@sse.com