Regen has been working with National Grid Electricity Distribution since 2015 to deliver the annual Distribution Future Energy Scenarios (DFES) assessments to guide distribution network planning.
Project duration (2024 iteration): April 2024 – December 2024
Project lead: Grace Millman, Senior Energy Analyst
To meet the UK’s carbon reduction targets, the energy system will undergo substantial change, from major wind, solar and energy storage projects down to heating and transport for individual households. In order to plan for this energy system evolution, Regen and National Grid Electricity Distribution (NGED) have worked together since 2015 to produce annual Distribution Future Energy Scenarios (DFES) for each of NGED’s four licence areas. Now an annual process for each Distribution System Operator (DSO), each DFES builds on the analysis and engagement undertaken over the previous years.
The scenarios cover distribution-connected generation and storage, from solar and wind farms to gas-fired generation and batteries, alongside key sources of energy demand such as electric vehicles, heat pumps, new housing developments and hydrogen electrolysers, within the framework of the National Grid ESO Future Energy Scenarios (FES).
The DFES process helps NGED to understand:
NGED uses the outputs of the DFES modelling to determine the potential impacts of new development on the distribution network, to provide an evidence base to support future network reinforcement and investment, and to identify opportunities for the use of non-network solutions such as storage and flexibility services. For key low-carbon technologies, a more detailed, granular analysis is completed as part of the DFES assessment, producing street-level future scenario projections on the low voltage network, for electric vehicles (EVs), EV chargers, heat pumps, rooftop solar and domestic battery storage.
The DFES is heavily underpinned by input from local stakeholders. As part of this annual engagement, Regen delivers a series of interactive webinars outlining the overall thinking and approach to DFES analysis. The team uses interactive software online polling platform – Menti – to gauge views on the uptake of new or disruptive future energy technologies, testing some of the assumptions used in the DFES modelling and to explore some of the regional characteristics for the NGED licence areas that may align with, or diverge away from, national trends.
NGED and Regen are currently undertaking the 2024 iteration of the DFES which looks at a set of possible future scenarios for the uptake of key energy technologies out to 2050. Over the coming months, we will be engaging local authorities, regional decision-makers, project developers, asset owners, energy consumers, community energy groups and trade bodies to develop bottom-up, stakeholder-led regional future scenarios to inform NGED’s network planning and investment. You can sign up for the stakeholder consultation events here and reach out via email if you would like to part of our wider DFES engagement.
The outputs of our previous DFES analyses are published on National Grid’s website here.
