The Panel will be joined by Bryan Puszkar, Southern and Scottish Energy – Customer relationship Thames Valley.
Minutes:
The Advisory Panel were joined by Bryan Puszkar, Southern and Scottish Energy – Customer Relationship Manager in the Thames Valley, who provided the group with an overview on Distribution Future Energy Scenarios.
The presentation looked at two main areas:
· Introduction to Distribution Future Energy Scenarios.
· Local impact of the transition to Net Zero
The overview included the following highlights:
· SSE were the Distribution Network Operator, which meant that they owned the electricity network in the area.
· Electricity was delivered to over 3.8 million homes in the central belt of Scotland and central Southern England.
· A lot of work was currently being undertaken on the Future Energy Scenarios, to outline 4 pathways for the future of energy to 2050.
· 3 of the 4 pathways reached net zero in the UK by 2050 or sooner, but with different technologies and trajectories.
· The Distribution Future Energy Scenarios supported the national grids modelling. This was adjusted as required. This was very evidence based and included stakeholder engagement with local communities, customers and developers.
· EVs were a very hot topic, but another hot topic was the was the electrisation of heat, with the movement away from gas central heating.
· Installing new cables would be costly, looking at local and new sources of producing electricity were key.
· The Distribution Future Energy Scenarios modelling was a 4-stage approach.
· It was important to understand the uptake across the region, which enabled SEE to provide modelling for the network and to be able to forward plan across the regions.
· Modelling for Spelthorne was share with the group regarding heat pup uptake projections and EV uptake projections.
As a result of the Advisory Panel’s comments and questions, the following points were made:
· It was important to understand from the Council what type of infrastructure is needed to be put in. This is where collaboration on a national level is required.
· Reliability of the network was a slightly different issue, and lots of work was undertaken in a number of areas to ensure that the capacity and reliability was in place.
· Some suppliers were giving offers to charge your cars over nights at a cheaper rate when there was not as much capacity on the grid.
· If additional capacity is being put on to the grid, it was important that this was being done in a green way.
· National grid transmitted electricity around the country, and SSE distributed at a local level.
· Going forward the grid needed to be much smarter.
· The network needed to understand what was required at a local level with the new need and demand moving forward.
· SSE didn’t deal with billing the customers. Approx. 17% of a householders bill came to SEE. The supplier didn’t deal with the distribution of electricity.
· SSE looked after the maintenance of the electricity.
· SSE had a 5 year price control, a plan for the price control was put forward to the regulator to agree which covered everything that was needed to be done to the network.
· There were areas of the network that were more constrained than others.
· SEE wanted to facilitate the move to EV but it was important to understand where the uptake was going to be. So, it was important to the investment was being made in the right place.
· It was requested that a map of the information be provide, or an information session with the data be provided from SSE with the transport team.