The energy transition requires an evolution of the energy system, the markets and actors that underpin it, and the behaviour of its consumers. The future of our energy system amounts to the product of how national policy materialises as regional and local outcomes.

Since 2015, Regen has been looking extensively at potential future energy pathways at a regional and local level, through pioneering and delivering Distribution Future Energy Scenarios (DFES) assessments for electricity and gas distribution networks. The DFES approach provides high granularity scenario forecasts focused on individual geographic licence areas, projecting the trajectories of energy generation (low carbon and fossil fuel), demand and storage technologies which are expected to connect to or disconnect from the GB distribution networks, out to 2050.

Through delivering these assessments, Regen has gained insight into the regional trends of the current fuel mix of our energy supply, the constantly evolving pipeline of established, new and emerging low-carbon technologies s at both a regional and neighborhood level.

The Regional Energy Scenarios Insight Series will therefore look to highlight some of the key findings, trends and potential outcomes we are seeing across the UK, including the development of marine energy generation, the scale of the solar and battery storage pipelines, a street-level view of the uptake of EV charging and the future regional potential for bioenergy.

Take a look at the insight blog and podcast below and watch this space for more.

Eleventh-hour opportunity as tidal energy gets £20m reserve allocation in latest CfD round

Blog by Grace Millman, energy analyst

Tidal energy is one of the most reliable and predictable sources of renewable energy. Taken together with wave energy and floating wind, tidal energy offers the UK the opportunity to diversify its generation of renewable power both geographically and technologically, helping build system resilience. In this blog, Grace Millman, lead analyst on Regen’s 2021 Distribution Future Energy Scenarios for Western Power Distribution, examines the ebbs and flows of tidal energy over the last few years, as well as the future of tidal energy in light of the latest government announcement that tidal stream would be awarded a £20m ring-fenced minima within AR4.

Read the blog

The UK energy storage pipeline

Podcast by Ray Arrell, head of technical development and Bruce Bardsley, energy analyst

In this episode of Regen’s Transforming Energy podcast, Ray Arrell, head of technical development, and Bruce Bardsley, energy analyst, take an in-depth look at the UK energy storage pipeline.

This podcast was produced as part of the Electricity Storage Network (ESN) Annual Marketplace – find out more about the event here. If you’re not yet a member of the ESN, find out more about our work and how you can get involved here.

Listen on Spotify

Listen on Apple Podcasts

Project duration: May 2021 to July 2021

As part of this years distribution future energy scenarios we are hosting four webinars for local stakeholders in Western Power Distribution’s (WPD) licence areas to directly influence the models and assumptions that are made during the future energy analysis. The sessions will provide the opportunity to ask questions, answer some of ours, and learn how to access and use the data once published.

The sessions will be as follows, click through to book your place:

• South West – view the session recording online here
• South Wales – view the session recording online here
• West Midlands – view the session recording online here
• East Midlands – view the session recording online here

Project summary
To support WPD’s strategic network investment planning, Regen has been commissioned to undertake an analysis of various ‘future energy scenarios’ for the four WPD licence areas – the South West, South Wales, East Midlands, and West Midlands. The project builds on previous years of analysis looking at the uptake and deployment of renewable and fossil fuel power generation, energy storage, low carbon heat, electric vehicles and hydrogen electrolysis, as well as analysing planned new housing and commercial developments. The analysis of different net zero scenarios, informed by detailed contextual factors and local stakeholder feedback, will help WPD to plan strategically and invest appropriately in the electricity network.

Towards net zero
This analysis takes the annual National Grid ‘Future Energy Scenarios’ and assesses the deployment of the various technologies at a granular level for each licence area, as well as looking at the specific local factors such as local plans, renewable resources, agricultural land, socio-economic factors and public transport provision. Each local and regional area in Great Britain has unique characteristics and resources, therefore each will have their own levels of deployment of renewable and low carbon technologies as the UK aims to achieve net zero carbon emissions by 2050.

You can view the project in full here. If you are interested in finding out more about our wider future energy scenarios work and this project, please contact Jonty Haynes or any of the analyst team

Project duration: January 2021 – March 2021

Project lead: Jonty Haynes, senior analyst

Regen has worked alongside SSEN to undertake a high level scenario analysis of the impact of energy efficiency measures in SSEN’s Southern England and North of Scotland licence areas, expanding on the recently released 2020 edition of SSEN’s Distribution Future Energy Scenarios.

National scenarios, such as those produced by National Grid ESO and the Climate Change Committee (CCC), have a strong narrative around energy efficiency and its impact across all forms of energy consumption. There is a need to understand how these potential outcomes may look at a regional and local level, which this study aims to address. The analysis approach was necessarily high level, focusing on the impact of energy efficiency in terms of a demand reduction factor for the five major demand sources: domestic heat, domestic lighting and appliances, non-domestic heat, non-domestic lighting and appliances and industrial processes.

Headline results – very ambitious targets between 2025 and 2035

In the scenarios that achieve the UK and Scotland’s net zero targets, the majority of energy efficiency improvements were projected to occur by the early 2030s, particularly within the non-domestic sector, facilitating low carbon fuel switching and smart, flexible electricity consumption in the later 2030s and 2040s. The concentration of energy efficiency gains within a relatively short timeframe reflects the current slow uptake (also the focus on fuel poverty which tends enable latent demand), followed by a rapid sprint from 2025 to 2035 in order to meet the governments targets, and the 5^th and 6^th carbon budgets.

There is uncertainty over the level of demand reduction that can be achieved through energy efficiency, which is reflected in the range of scenario outcomes. The impact of energy efficiency was modelled using existing and proposed policies, current trends and abatement measures identified as commercially feasible. By 2035, the impact of energy efficiency on the current baseload electricity demand ranges from 7% to 29%, depending on the scenario.

Early demand reduction in the scenarios is driven by the non-domestic sector, with the expectation that private and public sector energy efficiency measures will be complete by the early 2030s in the net zero scenarios, as per the CCC’s Sixth Carbon Budget. Domestic heat demand, in contrast, has historically proved more difficult to reduce through energy efficiency measures, and rollout occurs mainly in the later 2020s and 2030s. Across the scenarios, the impact of energy efficiency on non-domestic energy demand by 2030 was projected to be on average 50% higher than the impact on domestic heat demand.

Local impacts and variation

The analysis was undertaken at the level of Electricity Supply Areas (ESAs), broadly primary substations. It showed that, while many aspects of energy efficiency are driven by national policy and trends, the local demand impact can vary significantly depending on the domestic, commercial and industrial building stock and demand sources present in each area.

In the Consumer Transformation scenario, in which the UK meets its energy efficiency targets such as those defined in the Clean Growth Strategy, the impact of energy efficiency on current electricity baseload reduction varied between 10% to 28% in 2035 between ESAs.

Across all scenarios, the energy efficiency reduction factor (%) on current baseload was less in city and town centres, which typically contain high proportions of office and retail buildings and better insulated dwellings, particularly flats and tenements. Conversely, rural and industry-dominated areas showed higher energy efficiency reduction factor potential, owing to typically less well insulated building stock and the higher potential for industrial buildings and processes to reduce energy demand, compared to office and retail premises. However, due to the concentration of electricity demand in urban areas, the absolute level of demand reduction is greater within urban and city areas, alongside locations with high levels of industrial demand.

The energy efficiency analysis was completed in March 2021, see our joint press release with SSEN here. It was an extension to the full Distribution Future Energy Scenarios completed for both SSEN licence areas launched in January 2021, see here.

The two licence area reports are available to view and download from our publications page here.

If you are interested in finding out more about this project with SSEN or our wider work in future energy scenarios, please contact Jonty Haynes.

Project duration: July 2020 – December 2020

Project lead: Ray Arrell, Head of Technical Development

Regen worked alongside Scottish and Southern Electricity Networks (SSEN) to undertake the 2020 edition of their Distribution Future Energy Scenarios (DFES) analysis for both the North of Scotland (SHEPD) and Southern England (SEPD) distribution network licence areas. As part of this project, Regen also refreshed the more granular Low Carbon Technology (LCT) study that Regen developed with SSEN towards the end of 2019, producing scenario projections for EVs, electricity fuelled heating technologies and domestic rooftop solar PV capacity to secondary substation and feeder level – the equivalent of street-level forecasts.

The DFES process provides SSEN with detailed scenario projections for the increase (or reduction) in the connected capacity of energy generation, storage, and disruptive demand technologies connecting to SSEN’s distribution network out to 2050. The analysis also includes projections for new housing and the increase in commercial and industrial developments.

This work forms part of SSEN’s network planning and investment appraisal process, with Regen’s DFES projection datasets and accompanying written reports allowing network planners and forecasting teams to model and analyse different future load scenarios on SSEN’s network. The DFES has also supported SSEN to develop an evidence base and input into SSEN’s business plan submission for the upcoming RIIO-ED2 price control period, with the SSEN team engaging local councils with scenario data for their specific local authority area.

Engagement with regional and local stakeholders is a core feature of DFES analysis. Regen teamed up with SSEN and the Energy Systems Catapult to deliver a series of interactive webinars across August and September, looking at the local area energy plans and future energy scenarios in both licence areas. A summary of these events and the Mentimeter slides (including results of some online polling conducted on the day) are available on our website, see: North of Scotland webinar (25 Aug) and Southern England webinars (3 & 8 Sep). Regen and SSEN also held a workshop with representatives from Scottish Government in November, seeking to reflect the energy and decarbonisation policy ambitions for North Scotland (including the recently published Climate Change Plan Update) in the North of Scotland licence area analysis.

The project also initiated a data and information exchange with all of the local authorities that sit within each of SSEN’s licence areas. This process enabled Regen and SSEN to understand the location and trajectories for the development of new housing and commercial developments, as well understanding the impacts of local energy strategies, initiatives, decarbonisation targets and climate change declarations, at a local level.

For both licence areas, the results showed a significant evolution of the electricity generation capacity connecting and operating on the distribution network out to 2050. The analysis also highlighted a significant increase in the capacity of commercial and domestic battery storage, as well as some 5 million electric vehicles and 2.5 million heat pumps connecting by 2050 in some scenarios.

The analysis for the DFES and LCT completed in December 2020 and was launched in mid January 2021, see our joint press release with SSEN here.

The two licence area reports are available to view and download from our publications page here.

If you are interested in finding out more about this project with SSEN or our wider work in future energy scenarios, please contact Ray Arrell.