The UK’s first Strategic Spatial Energy Plan (SSEP), due to be published next year, will fundamentally change how generation, storage and network infrastructure is planned. Yet, while much of the discussion has focused on the technical challenge of identifying where infrastructure should go, the success of the SSEP will depend just as much on how communities experience its implementation.
With the SSEP consultation expected early in 2027, there is a need to consider not only what the plan contains, but also how it is delivered. Strategic energy planning will only succeed if communities understand what the SSEP is, have meaningful opportunities to influence decisions and benefit locally.
My recent Churchill Fellowship research in Australia examining the implementation of Renewable Energy Zones (REZs) explored these challenges. While the UK's SSEP is not a direct equivalent, the experiences of Australian communities hosting strategically planned energy infrastructure offer valuable lessons as the UK moves from developing the plan to delivering it.
REZs were developed to coordinate the deployment of renewable generation, storage and transmission infrastructure. The concept emerged through the Australian Energy Market Operator's (AEMO) Integrated System Plan, which identified areas with strong renewable energy resources and the potential for coordinated network investment.
Rather than projects being developed in isolation, REZs take a more strategic approach by coordinating multiple generation projects and network investment together. While the overarching concept is similar across Australia, REZs vary significantly between states. The scale, governance arrangements and approaches to community engagement differ, providing interesting insights for the UK, where the SSEP is also seeking to provide a more coordinated approach to energy planning.
As the SSEP moves towards consultation, one lesson from Australia stands out – before asking communities for their views, we need to ensure they understand what strategic energy planning is, why it matters and what it means for their local area – including what the wider benefits are likely to be.
This became particularly clear when I explored one of Australia's first Renewable Energy Zones, the Central-West Orana REZ in New South Wales. In the early stages of its development, there was a strong focus on engaging developers and investors. Communities, meanwhile, often had little understanding of what a REZ actually was. As one interviewee described it, developers arrived talking about projects that were part of the REZ, while local residents were still asking: "What’s a REZ?"
The lesson was clear - asking communities to engage with the implementation of a strategic plan before they understand what it is creates a significant risk of confusion, misinformation and frustration, ultimately undermining trust in both individual projects and the wider planning process.
For many people in the UK, the SSEP consultation will be their first encounter with strategic energy planning. It therefore needs to do a lot more than simply gather views – it needs to build understanding around what the SSEP is, why it’s being developed, what decisions it will influence and, importantly, what it will not do. In particular, people will need to understand that identifying an area as suitable for future energy infrastructure does not mean that projects will automatically be built there.
Building understanding is only the first step; the SSEP consultation must also provide meaningful opportunities for communities to shape the plan. People are far more likely to support change when they feel they’ve had a genuine opportunity to influence it, rather than simply being informed once decisions have already been made.
My research in Australia also highlighted the importance of who undertakes engagement, both before and during implementation. Effective engagement is not simply about organisations coming into a community to explain a plan – it requires investment in local capacity and trusted local voices who can help facilitate conversations, answer questions and enable communities to participate confidently in decisions that will shape their area. Local engagement thus needs to continue beyond the official consultation process, which raises the question of who will be responsible for supporting the ongoing coordination of community engagement, community benefits and the management of impacts arising from the SSEP once the plan is published?
While early engagement is critical, there is a risk if speculative projects engage too early. A further challenge identified during my research in Australia was the emergence of what I describe as ‘phantom projects’– projects that begin community consultation despite significant uncertainty about whether they will ever be built.
This issue emerged in areas with some existing grid capacity, particularly around REZs. Developers sought to secure network capacity or position themselves for future opportunities by bringing forward proposals and beginning community engagement. As a result, communities often found themselves engaging with multiple projects simultaneously, many of which were competing for the same limited opportunities.
In one area that I visited, communities had been consulted on nearly 100 proposed renewable energy projects, despite expectations that only 10 would ultimately proceed. This created understandable confusion and frustration, with local people investing significant time and effort engaging with projects without knowing which were realistic and which were unlikely to progress. This raises concerns about consultation fatigue and confidence in the planning process, making it less likely for communities to want to engage with or support projects.
Whether this could become an issue for the UK is an important question as the SSEP moves towards implementation. Strategic plans identifying areas with strong potential for energy development may attract increased developer interest, particularly where existing grid capacity already exists. While early project engagement is very important, we also need to consider how communities can engage meaningfully without being repeatedly consulted on highly speculative proposals.
There are no simple answers, but the Australian experience suggests that transparency about the likelihood of projects proceeding, alongside better coordination of engagement across multiple projects, will be essential if public trust is to be maintained.
Another important lesson emerging from Australia's REZ is the need to think strategically about cumulative impacts.
When planning energy infrastructure, developers and planners carefully consider the impacts of each project, from construction traffic and pressure on local services to environmental effects and changes to the local landscape. Assessed in isolation, these impacts can appear manageable, with appropriate mitigation measures put in place. However, communities rarely experience projects in isolation. Instead, they can experience the combined effects of multiple developments taking place over many years. For example, construction activity from multiple developments may increase demand on local roads, temporary accommodation or public services in ways that would not be apparent when considering each project separately. While each project may be well managed and have a relatively modest impact in its own right, the cumulative experience for communities can be quite different.
This creates a disconnect. communities experience the impacts cumulatively, while planning and assessment largely remain project-by-project. If the SSEP is to take a more strategic approach to planning energy infrastructure, it should also consider how cumulative impacts are anticipated, managed and mitigated. Deciding where infrastructure is built is only part of the picture; strategic planning should also consider how development is experienced by the communities hosting it. Consideration needs to be given to who has responsibility for this.
Alongside understanding what the SSEP means, communities will also want to understand what it means for them.
The importance of meaningful community benefits emerged as a consistent theme throughout my research in Australia. Traditional community benefit funds (i.e grants) remain important, but many participants argued that they do not always address what communities value most. In some cases, communities expressed frustration that funding was only available for set grant projects while wider challenges affecting quality of life, such as healthcare, transport and local services, remained unresolved.
This was particularly significant in rural and regional communities that have experienced long-term underinvestment. In these areas, there was a strong desire for community benefits that addressed broader social and economic priorities, rather than simply providing funding for isolated projects.
The lesson for the UK is that community benefits cannot be approached as a standardised package. Effective benefit models need to be developed with communities, reflect local priorities and recognise the wider social and economic context in which infrastructure is being delivered.
Importantly, the SSEP presents an opportunity to think differently about community benefits. If we are moving towards a more strategic approach to planning energy infrastructure, there is also an opportunity to take a more strategic approach to how benefits are delivered. Rather than only considering community benefits on a project-by-project basis, the SSEP could provide a mechanism to coordinate benefits across multiple projects within an area. This could enable investment that contributes to addressing longer-term local priorities and underlying challenges that individual projects cannot deliver alone.
While there are clearly practical and governance questions to address, the experience from Australia suggests that communities are often looking for something more fundamental than a collection of individual grant funds. They want to understand how hosting infrastructure will contribute to the long-term prosperity and resilience of their area.
My forthcoming Churchill Fellowship report will explore these issues in more detail, but the lessons emerging from Australia already suggest several priorities for the UK's SSEP.
1.We need to get the consultation process right. The SSEP consultation will be one of the first opportunities for the wider public to engage with the process. It needs to provide a meaningful opportunity for people to influence the plan, rather than simply respond to it. Communities will rightly want to know how their feedback has shaped decisions, and where changes have not been possible, there should be transparency about why.
2. We need to think seriously about cumulative impacts and cumulative benefits. Some places will host significantly more energy infrastructure than others. Strategic planning should help us understand how cumulative impacts can be managed and mitigated and how we ensure that benefits can be coordinated to respond to local needs.
3. We need to recognise that publishing the SSEP is only the beginning of the process. The implementation of strategic energy planning will require ongoing coordination between NESO, developers and local communities. This raises important questions about who is responsible for different elements of implementation.
If you would like to discuss this topic in more detail please reach out to Rebecca.
