Webinar on Net Zero and the Decarbonisation of National Grid Distribution Network

Speaker 1

Good morning, everyone. Thank you for joining us on when you have a delightful sunny lunch time. Thank you for choosing to sit inside and listen to us. As that said, I'm Morwenna Slade. I'm the head of historic building climate change adaptation based in the technical conservation team in Historic England. I lead a multidisciplinary team that focuses on mitigation and adaptation in the historic built environment unnecessarily.

Speaker 1

It all feeds into the general built environment, too. So today we're here to talk about the decarbonization of flash grid, the things that we should know about engaging with our distribution network operators as we develop projects to move our built environment towards net zero. I think for most of us when we think of the electricity distribution network, we think of the highly visible assets that stand unmissable in our landscape.

Speaker 1

The pylons like the central picture, the bigger substations and I think more often perhaps the generation rather than the distribution at all. It is yet the hidden assets we passed everyday unnoticed that are working hardest to supply our energy needs and will have the greatest impact on our ability to achieve our targets for decarbonization in our buildings. I've included here a few pictures of some of my favorite hidden distribution network assets from the conservation area.

Speaker 1

I live in Bristol. The vent on the right is often painted like a lighthouse and sometimes has little seagulls on wires attached to it. Many people will see this as a random piece of characterful, perhaps historic street furniture, rather than the vent for the underground substation that they're walking across as they pass it is the substations such as these that present some of the biggest challenges to improving our network and delivering what society needs to achieve its broader climate aims.

Speaker 1

As we move towards responding to the climate crisis and specifically decarbonizing the built environment, many of us are increasingly aware of how important it is to think beyond our sectors and our specialisms, to understand how we need to work together, to respond to the challenges and identify the appropriate solutions as a country. The success story so far for decarbonization is generation and the national grid.

Speaker 1

Indeed, the gains in the built environment are mainly down to this sector's actions and not our own. So in order to develop our understanding of how we work with others and how we achieve our aims, I'm really delighted to introduce our speakers today. Paul Jewell is a chartered engineer and fellow of the Institute of Engineering and Technology. Trained as an operational engineer, he has experienced all aspects of the distribution, network, maintenance, replacement and construction.

Speaker 1

He's also held policy roles looking at business innovation and is currently the system development manager Kester Jones is connections strategy manager responsible for connection strategy across what was Western power distribution is now and is now National Grid and this includes road maps for major connection and mass market customer segments. His team also identifies the role of digitalization, can play in enhancing customer service and driving energy and driving efficiency.

Speaker 1

Also joining us for the discussion is my colleague from Technical Conservation, Caroline Contenido, Senior Building Services engineer, and she's the team leader for the historic England's building services team. So with that, I have the greatest pleasure to pass over to Paul for your presentation.

Speaker 2

Thanks Morwenna. Yes, good afternoon, everybody. I'm going to make a start on the presentation. Walter, I'll tell you a bit about the electricity industry in the UK and how we see the change in low carbon technologies, which is the catch all phrase for heat pumps, electric vehicles and generation. And then what? I'll do is I'll pass over to customer to talk about how the connection systems works.

Speaker 2

So to start with what we do. Well, when I said we used to be called Western power distribution, we're now called National Grid. That title changed just a few weeks ago. Actually, it was early in September that we had our name changed. We were a separate company that has now become part of the National Grid Group, and some of the icons haven't come up on that graphic there.

Speaker 2

But basically we're the network operator that operates in the south west, South Wales and two midlands areas. So we go from Land's End to Skegness and back again, covering 8 million homes and businesses, which is about a third of the UK and our job is to get energy from the National Grid Transmission Network to people's rentals. So we do that as the numbers are for the size of our network.

Speaker 2

But essentially we we deliver electricity to people's front doors. We don't buy it, we don't sell it, we just deliver it. And some of the icons are still on that slide show that in our world it used to be a world where electricity was generated centrally. It's now a world where electricity operates in two directions. There's a lot more generation on the distribution networks as well.

Speaker 2

So yeah, there's different things for us to do in running the network and running essentially two way flower, two way about what flows. So what that means for us is we've got a selection of roles and I think that the four left hand roles are ones which we've done forever really, and I've been around for a long time and I certainly the ones that are always on our agenda, which is keeping that network running and connecting customers, whereas the one which is come in and is front and center, the business plans that all network operators have put into our regulator at the moment is about being smart, managing power flows and operating a system which

Speaker 2

doesn't just build to peak demands. And I'll talk a bit more about that later. It's it builds for a network that needs to be cleverer and have more low carbon technologies connected to it. So I think what I've got at the end of this slide is a little voting question for you. If that was going to pop up.

Speaker 2

And the voting question is, are you already aware of national grid brackets, Western power distribution? I've got some guesses already. That's good, isn't it? But what I say is, whilst this is national, are you aware of your local network operator? So that might be UK power networks. It might be Scottish and Southern Energy Networks, it might be electricity, north west, northern power grid or Scottish power energy networks.

Speaker 2

And it's really for me, it's just a a deep check to see whether people have engaged with a network operator because of somewhere in the background, you'll engage with your supplier who sentences the electricity bill for what you've used. But unless you've asked for a new supplier or an increased supply to wherever you are or you've had power cuts, then you might not know who we are.

Speaker 2

But we ask three quarters of you know who we are, which is good. I hope it's not all because of power cuts, but good to know that you're aware of that. We're here in the industry, so let's move on.

Speaker 2

So moving on from there, within the industry, as I've mentioned, the six different operators in the industry, we all have our own license area, so we all have our own discrete geographical areas. And that in a sense means that if you want to connect in those areas, you end up being our customer. Whether you like it or not.

Speaker 2

So I've really got mostly a monopoly position in the distribution network we operate. So we're very highly regulated by a regulator called Ofgem, the Office of Gas and Electricity Markets, and that basically that to protect customers, which is a big thing, but also to make sure that we invest what is needed and what is prudent and ready to achieve things like net zero delivery and to make sure that there's competition in some of the roles that we undertake.

Speaker 2

So what they do is they ask the operators to put in business plans. There's a business plan on the table from all of the operators at the moment. It's called Rio 82. I won't bore you with the initials of what that means, but basically it's it's a five year period that starts next year and goes through to 2028 and all the network operators have put in a plan.

Speaker 2

Our plan focuses on those four main areas of sustainability connected by, let's say, vulnerability and affordability. If you're interested in our plan, you can get it from our website. The position that we're all there on the other network operators is that Ofgem have issued a draft determination on our plans and cut what we want. I've done that to all the operators.

Speaker 2

We've gone back with evidence of why we think we don't need that cutting and the plans will be finally judged and approved by opposition in November. And then we make a start on investing in the next five years to bring forward a network that can support net zero. If I pick on the Connect ability, run this place directly into net zero, my most we'll talk about low carbon technologies in a minute, but the thing that you'll see here is what we're expecting in our area, identical to the WPA area, the National Grid Distribution area.

Speaker 2

We want people to be able to connect these heat pumps and renewable generation easily. So we will be looking to invest in the network to add as it as it says, an additional one and a half million electric vehicles, 600,000 heat pumps by 2028. We want more community energy schemes on our network and the bottom right. The whole systems approach is we're looking for a say a bit more of a flexible network and a network which can flex with increased demand or increased generation.

Speaker 2

And I promise I will come on to that later if that's confusing of what that means. But basically the key is we want to be a network which is there to support net zero and let people connect to stuff which is going to reduce carbon emissions in the UK. And that's a key thing for us. If I go on though to the net zero and low carbon technologies of the slide, I'll tell you where we think we're going with low carbon technologies and how we think this ties in to net zero.

Speaker 2

So that's there is a word which the which which we use in the industry is it's a bit of slang really, but it's coming from announcements from government. So I think a lot of people get climate change. A lot of people understand that we want to reduce carbon emissions because we've got to change the climate of the planet.

Speaker 2

And what we've picked up on with the net zero was a binding, a legally binding decision in UK government which came at the end of Theresa may's time as Prime Minister, where we set a legally binding target to have net zero carbon emissions by 2050. So that that's where we're going for it wasn't new when it came in and a few years ago when Theresa may was prime minister.

Speaker 2

Because if you go back to 2011, one of the earliest documents I can remember, I was I was newly into a policy role that was carbon plant. And if you think 2011, a long time ago, no electric vehicles are available yet but the plan was the UK was going to decarbonize by decarbonizing heating and transport. It was going to take petrol and gas heated homes and vehicles and move them to electric solutions.

Speaker 2

The other thing that was going to do was it was going to green the electricity grid. So a lot more generation was become renewable and low carbon and that is actually we've seen that the grid is a lot greener than it used to be. When you look at carbon emissions in the UK, the craziest come first, then transport came second.

Speaker 2

Transport no comes first. It's not because transport has become anymore. Polluting, it's because the electricity network has become greener with certainly the phasing out of coal. I don't know if we quite phased out gas, but we've definitely phased out coal and oil as solutions that we use for generation. And I think the strap lines for distribution networks, whether it's us or whether it's only the others on the bottom, is more energy comes across our network and we need to be ready to provide more energy for the connections that you will need.

Speaker 2

If I look at where it takes us with low carbon technologies and electric vehicles, we have got a ban on the sale of petrol and diesel vehicles. So 2013 means you'll only be able to buy a brand new electric or hybrid vehicle. And there's about a million registrations a year, so there's going to be a million new charges required per year at that time.

Speaker 2

The government strategy scenarios show that there'll be about 600,000 heat pumps here. If you roll those into our area of the national grid area, you end up with about 500,000 a year or 2000 every working day, so that there's a huge uptick in the sort of work that we're going to do and uptake. But it's not just, as I said earlier, those customers that would have come to us for a new connection or would have come to us for a power cut, this is every customer coming back to us because they're going to have they're going to have an easy.

Speaker 2

And that does mean that they are just looking in the chat. I shouldn't do that because it puts me off. But Brian has said, isn't the target for grid electricity to be net zero by 2035? Yeah, there is a target from National Grid Electricity System Operator to green the grid by 2035. The target for 2050 is for the UK network decarbonization.

Speaker 2

Anyone going to stop looking at the check will put me off so customers that maybe haven't spoken to us for a long time are going to be facing a path back to our door because they're going to be connecting to low carbon technologies. And if you're looking after historic estates and places that address attractions, your customers are going to want to charge their cars perhaps when they get to your locations.

Speaker 2

The 2000 today sounds like a lot. We've already been here once. If you look at the generation that was connected across the National Grid distribution area in 1997, there wasn't a lot of it. But tariffs on that carbon plant back in 2011, supporting decarbonized, decentralized generation means that by the time we got to 2017, the die had been cast and the network was full of a lot more generation, basically ready for the demand that's going to come with electric vehicles and heat pumps.

Speaker 2

So the rollout that we're seeing isn't new. We've done it before. We just need to do it again. It just might be a slightly bigger hill to climb this time. I've mentioned charging and when it comes to charging, we did a trial called Electric Nation. I like referencing Electric Nation because it starts in 2015 and 2015 is only seven years ago.

Speaker 2

The project was pitched to me originally as right. What we want to do is work out how EVs charge, how it affects the electricity network. And the plan was to get 780 drivers monitor the way they use chargers at home and create enough evidence to have a package of what we think will be charge behavior. The reason that I highlighted as only being seven years ago, because only seven years ago, my biggest issue with the project as proposed was where did we think we were going to get 700 EV drivers?

Speaker 2

And then in the early stage of that project, back in those days, you were probably maybe driving a Tesla or Nissan Leaf, maybe a Volkswagen Para that wasn't else around. We had a Tesla for a while that we were used to to I'm trying to drum up support for the project and if we took the Tesla places, people would come and look at the Tesla.

Speaker 2

As I say, it's only seven years ago and now the Teslas are all over the place, EVs all over the place. The world is going to accelerate on. What we learned from that project was that maybe drivers don't charge every night, but they'll charge when they want to charge, they'll respond to price signals. They don't become a problem on our network and we've changed our policy.

Speaker 2

I'll talk a bit more about that later, but we've changed our policy to allow more of those to connect. I've just remembered I should have put a question in after item ten. Say this works. Doesn't it know I should have been prompted beforehand? This is really about looking at where we were going with the increase. The generation all those years ago and now looking at where decarbonization might go with transport heating in generation.

Speaker 2

And the question is, if you're looking in your organization at decarbonizing your own transport or your provision for for your customers or your heating or generation, where are you on that journey? If you've got an idea that you're going to do something as an Internet, you're tactically delivering things, where are you? Are you still thinking about it or have you got some plans?

Speaker 2

Is the acid test? If I drive to one of your locations, that might also be a tourist location. Can I charge my EV a or not? Are you looking at gas heating and thinking how do I stop doing that in this big building, etc. etc.? Somebody said, I think ABC is at different stages. Yeah, I'm beginning to think we should have actually had nine ounces, three and three times three.

Speaker 2

But there we go. I think what was interesting is that there's a lot more strategic intent and thinking about what you want to do next rather than stuff that's actually being delivered, which I think is important for us because it helps play into our times of what we do for the future. And our plans are making sure that the the grid is big enough when you need it to be big enough.

Speaker 2

So thanks for those answers. Okay. So moving away from domestic charging, we did a lot of work with local authorities because early engagement with local authorities was was looking at what they were going to do, what were they going to be heavy charges on street lamps or was it going to be something different? I worry about the network feeds the street lamps because it's not really strong enough to charge electric vehicles with.

Speaker 2

So we looked at what local authorities were doing and local authorities quite interesting. They were saying that that plans were revolving around car parks. So we've developed a solution which is the same sort of solution we'd have for housing a site. So down the road from wherever you live, there will be a electrical substation, a bit like one of the ones that went on the photo.

Speaker 2

It will be a three meters by three meters or three meters by four meters box of electricity. We can provide that in a car park. And whether it's a local authority car park, whether it's a tourist attraction car park, it doesn't really matter. We can offer you one megawatt of charging, which is 2050 kilowatt, rapid charges or whatever makes you need of that at a location.

Speaker 2

That solution is ready to roll something to go to scale bigger. And I don't think you'll be in the market for this, but just to give you an idea of where things might go, we were looking at motorway service areas and what they do and motorway service areas. When you look at the demand, they're going to need to feed cars, vans, trucks.

Speaker 2

In many cases, a motorway service area will have the same sort of electrical supply characteristics. As a small town, it's huge and it's basically game changing for us. The picture on the right is the sort of substation that we use to feed a small town, and we've done a project extra services at the bottom of the M5 that plays nicely into that sort of West Country tourist thing to provide a towns with the capacity at the motorway services in Exeter and we've we've shrunk one of those substations into a couple of shipping containers that's no accident that as a result of that there's no access or I think 16 grid surcharges, another 20 Tesla charges

Speaker 2

and another 20 grid sets ready to be built. It changes the face of motorway services. They need more capacity, but it's also putting forward the fact that if you're going to do something big, you need to think big. And I guess if I've got a message for you guys, if you're planning when it comes to laying cables and laying infrastructure, think big and like they because you'll need it in the future.

Speaker 2

I did say I mentioned flexibility, so I'll quickly go back onto that. So if you take that graph there, let's say that that's a graph where the green line is the capacity of our network. The blue line is the load that we're seeing and how far is basically supporting half hours on that graph, which is a day. So there's a time during the night where nobody gives as much electricity.

Speaker 2

We you spend during the day and then in the early evening, there's a peak, the usage which then drops back off and more or less the network copes with the demand that's placed upon it. The green light is in the right place as more load gets added to the network and the red line becomes the line that we're now dealing with, we've got two options.

Speaker 2

One option is move the green light up to cover that. The other option, which is where flexibility comes in, if you look at the spaces above the green line and you can see if you can shift energy into the gaps that exist either side of that peak. So could you move energy from that early evening peak into the later evening just to the right of where it is?

Speaker 2

Could you have pre-loaded energy into appliances, equipment, whatever during the day? And where we're going and all the other network operators are doing exactly the same is now playing the balance of Do I want to move that peak or do I want to pay a customer not to use energy in that peak? Or do I want to build a conventional network?

Speaker 2

And there's a lot no which is more about trying to shave that peak off the demand curve rather than move the green arrow up. I will pick up a lot of work for smart meters. What smart meters have been fitted by the energy suppliers. It's not us. We don't own the we don't operate them, but we like smart meters because smart meters give us information on the network.

Speaker 2

They don't give us information on what individual customers are doing, but they give us information or they hold cable theta or a whole substation. And they help us go back to that graph I showed you on the last slide, and they give us the opportunity to build the network and a bit more of a smart and sensible way.

Speaker 2

So I think that's me covered. What I'll do now is I will pass over to test us, to talk in a bit more detail about connecting stuff. Thank you, Paul. Good afternoon everybody. Thanks for the introduction earlier. Morwenna My name's Custodians of the Connections stuff that you manage for National Grid, electricity distribution. One of the first areas I thought would be interesting to is the significant code review that Ofgem announced a couple of years ago, and it's a review into the way in which customers pay for access to the network.

Speaker 2

One of the big elements of that is how we enforcement costs are treated and the plan is that from next April, April 2020, fully connecting customers don't long play the lead enforcement element of that connection charge. Essentially, any of those enforcement costs get socialized as this has to be paid either policies as national grid for law enforcement for the customers.

Speaker 2

It applies to all the enforcement and for the generation customers. Battery storage is clusters generation. It deploys to reinforcement that the that the voltage level from the point of connection. All this is subject to a high cost cap. But essentially this leads into what Paul was talking about in terms of the increase of low carbon technology use because Ofgem want to see the network open up for connections.

Speaker 2

What that means for us, for the US or for licensing of youth is that that we will see increased applications for connections from next April and we will see more acceptances for those connections because less customers will actually be be put off by the reinforcement cost element at that juncture, it's worth jumping into one of the little consultation questions that I got, which is to see if you are aware of a project that didn't proceed due to due to higher costs, with the rationale being, obviously the enforcement costs will get socialized for any inquiries and applications from the first of all, 1st of April next year, subject to Ofgem approving the code review later this

Speaker 2

year.

Speaker 3

It's interesting to note there are 14 respondents who said that they are aware of projects that do not proceed.

Speaker 2

Yes, yeah. But I guess also this pushes back to Paul's original question because if a lot of projects are at the tactical or strategic phase, that might not have moved through to the application delivery phase yet, but that's certainly certainly interested. Okay. As Paul touched on earlier, we all regulated by Ofgem and we all set what we call guaranteed standards by Ofgem, which is the minimum that we have to deliver for our customers.

Speaker 2

These guarantees and standards set target date for a whole host of protection type inquiries, including generation. We have to report on them annually to Ofgem and our regulator. The reports and if we fail against those standards, we have to pay an automatic penalty payment to the customer for every day that we're late. And if we don't pay the guaranteed standard payment within ten working days, we have to make a further late payment on top of that national grid electricity distribution.

Speaker 2

We don't use those guaranteed standards as the backstop or the the maximum time permissible. We always endeavor to beat the guaranteed standards in terms of getting quotations out to customers in a timely manner and making connections to the network in a timely manner. So we don't wait until just before the guarantee standards of due to elapse, before we either issue the quotation or make the connection.

Speaker 2

Another thing that we we are regulator ensure is that we carry out a customer survey. So each of the license operators across the UK us to engage with an independent market research company. We send them a whole host of inquiries and data every week and every month. The Independent Survey Company publishes data for each of the license operators, essentially in three areas.

Speaker 2

So I think two options which could be plugged into options for maintenance or that could build plugged into options because the fault collections or giving quotes to customers for connections and also in terms of timeliness of making the physical connection itself a general inquiry which is essentially is anything else that comes to our contact center in terms of general inquiries to us as a license operator, we're targeted to achieve this goal of 8.9 against those three areas, although they are weighted with connections, making a path of the overall score.

Speaker 2

And currently, if we score over nine out of ten on average, we have an excellent all the kind of extra revenue each year you can see there. I'll go into each of the license areas that National Grid covers, but you can see from the schools there with call it high excellence of 8.8, 8.9. And in terms of general inquiries up at the 9.29.3 levels, other elements in terms of where we measures as well is the talked caught up time to quote and talk to connect perspective so this is for any low voltage connections of up to four houses all the small single low voltage connection to a small commercial factory to close essentially measures the

Speaker 2

average time taken from when we receive your application through to sending you a quotation for the of reach for receiving an application and quoting in terms of low voltage type inquiries is a few days and time to connect measures. The average time taken from when you accept and pay off what a customer accepts and pays on the scheme to physically complete ten.

Speaker 2

Those work on May 18, making that final connection. So energy flows through that connection. We also offer alternatives to a formal quotation. So we do also offer put your estimates. Put your estimates are particularly useful, especially connections at the higher end of the network. So at 11 k v 3366 k vehicle 2132 cozy connections that allows customers to receive up to two options for a site free of charge so they can go away and use those budget estimates costings in terms of looking at project viability.

Speaker 2

And then if they decide to go ahead with a certain project, come back to us and obtain a further quote, a firm closer to a later stage. We do also offer formal offers. As discussed previously, we can carry out feasibility studies in terms of understanding of elite funding viability, and we also offer what we call a study and offer if customers request a study enough a quote.

Speaker 2

And this is for Lost Generation Connections with an export capacity of five megawatts and above. Then essentially what we'll do is investigate a connection to fleet capacity. Capacity scenarios, provide an estimate for each one and only charge fees based on the application or one of the applications, which is the highest voltage requested or the option taken forward to formal offer.

Speaker 2

So again, available for customers to option their a number of various options at project viability assessment stage or the services that we offer as well is we offer what we call reinforcement trigger point as options clearly subject to Ofgem approving the access significant codes I discussed earlier from April next year that if the reinforcement costs do get socialized, then these options may not be viable options moving forward.

Speaker 2

But certainly at the moment we offer customers what we call to the point options. And essentially if a customer makes a capacity request to us that requires an element of reinforcement, we will go back and say and offer the offer based on the capacity that doesn't require reinforcement. So, for example, if a customer comes to us and asks for ten megawatt, if a three megawatt immediately available, that doesn't require network reinforcement, we will go back to the customer and give them the option of receiving an offer for the three megawatt.

Speaker 2

That requires reinforcement. That was something that we started late 2021, December 2021, and we said that about 50, 60% of customers at HP. So 33 K variable connections are actually choosing those to the points options. We can also offer firm connections. So firm connections as well as where the demand on the generation is confirmed and probably will trigger quite large levels of obviously reinforcement.

Speaker 2

But we can also offer non-farm connections as well. So such as time of day connections, except where it may be that doing abnormal alignment for export may not be possible. But we designed the network with only the main feed of the generator considered. Clearly, I've spoken about a number of options that if you do want to know more about them, then by all means contact us or contact us of offline.

Speaker 2

After this after this webinar, though, all of these while a lot of information on the Western power the old Western power websites still work at the National Quidco UK website. Now that the National Grid. But if you have a look on there there's forms and guides and process overflows in terms of how we manage interactive queues, how we manage queue management and lots of information about active network management, load manage connections, curtailment maps, etc., etc..

Speaker 2

There's a plethora of information on there. If you go and have a look at the the actual actual website itself, there. And what we also look to encourage customers to do is come and talk to us and come and talk to us early. We offer a number of collection surgeries, but those can actually search for these on that save or community energy surgeries.

Speaker 2

You can book them online via the National Grid UK website or come and talk to us and come talks with early. Because we find early engagement to early discussion really assists both ourselves as licensed operators and understanding customer requirements and customer planning and customer forecasting. But it also benefits customers as well in terms of kind of really thinking about the connection.

Speaker 2

It's a it's an early stage, the warm ups as a reference previously available online as well. Capacity ups, flexibility ups. There's even easy capacity maps on there now. And there's also a number of different stuff documents on there in terms of electric vehicles, in terms of low carbon heating and in terms of major connections. So by all means, have a look at the website, but contact us.

Speaker 2

Come and talk to us early. And you know, by all means, book connections, virtually appointment should you wish at that juncture. I've just got to jump into the final question of today. I suppose in hindsight, it's probably this question's really relevant to anybody who's used the online provision already, but for those you have just if you wouldn't mind writing, hey, you know, do you think that's good?

Speaker 2

Okay, do you think we could do better if we could do better? Be really interested in any comments in the chat. I'll try very hard not to read the choices I'm presented, but I will get the chat and the dialog from that at the end of the the webinar. But it's all about the elements in terms of where we could do better or where we could improve the ideas.

Speaker 2

Then please drop them in the chat that will pick them up if you do them separately.

Speaker 3

A cast of people are asking for a link to the maps. Is that something we can provide? I don't have a link, I'm afraid.

Speaker 2

Yes, I can provide that separately. But after that I suppose you could go on to the website though not to.

Speaker 3

No.

Speaker 2

Problems, turn it off, put it in the chat so I can provide it separately for send it out later.

Speaker 3

Joe we'll get the resource to to our attendees after the session in that case. Thank you.

Speaker 2

Thanks. It looks like on the slides actually the some of the links. Let me check those links still work, but I've often developed dated ones. Okay. Last but not least, they those aren't the only people that can give you a quotation for connection to that work or a physical connection to the network. Bill So what I see these two independent connection pathologies there, and there's also independent distribution network operators out there who want their own independent networks as well as connection customers.

Speaker 2

You have a choice on who delivers the scheme and who owns the constructive network. So, you know, we can provide you with a complete connection service, but, you know, it's up to you if you want to engage with or ask ICP for a quotation to undertake some or all of the work, or for an idea though to own a new network, a new network, which we refer to them as an embedded network.

Speaker 2

Again, the awesome further details on on our website as well include in the link to OCP idea those operating within for licensing of your patches. So in summary, we've talked about that too. It is as we see one of the biggest changes to our network since probably electrification back in the fifties. We're working on to make future capacity available both for existing networks but also for networks that we install for future.

Speaker 2

We want to make it as easy as possible and as simple as possible for the early adopters of electric vehicles. Anybody looking to fit domestic LCT can apply to us to do a website and gets an answer back as to whether they connect or not. The case might be within 24 working, 24 work, and that was we're looking to develop that into an online application whereby customers will get that real time answer.

Speaker 2

But essentially what we're focused on, though, is building the network now that we're be for the future. And one of the reasons for that is we install assets today and lay cables today, and they're good for the next 20, 30, 40 years. So we need to be thinking 20, 30, 40 years into the future for what we're installing today and tomorrow.

Speaker 2

Thank you.

Speaker 1

Thank you. Yes. To that was really interesting. And Paul as well, I think Mark is going to give us the opportunity to put our webcams on so that you can see us as we have a chat. Can I. Hey, can I get everyone to to pop their questions in the chat. Well, we, well, we kind of gather our thoughts on the presentations.

Speaker 1

Caroline Oh, I've gone dark. No, you're back again. I'm exciting times. I hope you're not playing with the electricity connection, boys. That wouldn't be. Wouldn't be fair right now. So as the technical conservation team, we often get some really careful questions. We are asked a variety of things that we may or may not know that fall within our specialisms and as as kind of leads in are in our environment.

00:45:17:07 - 00:45:35:10

Speaker 1

We we have to know who to come to for the questions and to find the answers, even if we don't know ourselves. So I'm going to pass over as people pop their questions in the chat. We have an I have a look at them to kind of coordinate going forwards. I'm going to pass over to Caroline, who actually often feels most of these questions.

00:45:35:17 - 00:45:57:09

Speaker 1

So I know that you've got some burning thoughts that you'd like to ask Castroville Age Thanks more and thanks Paul. And it's a really, really great presentation. There's been some themes coming through from the audience around the question, so I'm going to try and link some of these first two together, try and answer some of those. And there's one about community based schemes and also sort of been in rural communities.

Speaker 1

And we know for some of these these areas, it one of the that is one of the potential barriers for them to decarbonize the heat and transport is because they're in really weak parts of the network. And I know, Paul, you you opened and you said about this five year plan for supporting those areas for, you know, towards net zero.

Speaker 1

Can you just sort drew down a bit on that is if there's a community they want to go to a community scheme maybe changing over to electric heating for their community or a lot of people have mentioned bell transport schemes as well. So when you put that application in, how long does it actually really take? How long can some of those communities maybe be waiting.

Speaker 2

The timescale that once you put an application in, if we thought within those timescales? But I think that there's a bigger question for communities, which is how do we support them when a lot of the solar boom came, I suppose in the Southwest 2010 through 2015, community groups that were thinking of putting generation schemes on saying that they got crowded out by the big commercial developers because they community groups are really good resources, but often that people doing things in their spare time rather than being paid people and they were essentially missing out on being that when capacity was available and being able to make the applications.

Speaker 2

I'll tell you, if you took a community group that was lucky, if you like, changes with the new rules on connections. But look, because there was a five megawatt center like just on the road built by a venture capitalist, etc., etc. So what we're doing in the next price four year period is we are picking up community energy.

Speaker 2

So there's a strategy document and built into the plan is a plan for us to have four community energy engineers, one for each of the license areas. And what we want those people to be is the conduit between community groups and net zero. So they'll be able to share what other community groups are doing. Try and these people by the hand, if you like, if they need that towards the situation where then they can have a discussion with a national grid planner about the scheme that is that they want to deliver.

Speaker 2

So we're starting that now. We've got one community energy engineer working across the whole of the patch which keeps him busy, but we're beginning to build up ready. So that from next March we will be wanting to help community groups and I think is another change to what we want to do with community groups, which is historically it would have been community group for somebody that wants to put a wind farm or village or solar park on the hill by the village.

Speaker 2

I want community now to spread out to a community group. She hasn't really got much interest in generation but wants to know how they create EV charging for the village or how they create a a I don't know, a combined heat system for a state houses or whatever. So we want to drill out into more of that. But general net zero support, there was a district heating question I think.

Speaker 2

Yeah, that.

Speaker 1

Was the one I was thinking.

Speaker 2

Yeah. So I think has there been any involvement with district heating? The answer at the moment is no, probably not. But I'm expecting we'll see more of that in the next five year period.

Speaker 1

That's great. That sounds like a great initiative to have those engineers that help communities. And there was some other themes of two other themes coming through. I just want to touch on the climate change one and someone has I think a couple of people have mentioned the storms particularly still more wind and they without salt for eight days.

Speaker 1

I know friends who unfortunately change over to electric and we're just thankful for their wood burner for those eight days because otherwise it would been quite bleak. Can you just tell us what the National Grid or what their plan to do around? You know, we also know from one of our sites that the transformer substation went out because of overheating this summer.

Speaker 1

So one of our sites was out for quite a long period of time. What were the plans to do, you know, to make the network more resilient for a changing climate as well?

Speaker 2

Yeah, the is being made more resilient as more as it was five years ago, ten years ago, 20 years ago. But also climate change changes the style of storms we see at our it was a particularly difficult issue and it was it was also particularly difficult. I've got a lot of sympathy for certainly not the power grid in the Scottish companies that bore the brunt of it because often in storms, overhead lines will come down, but the poles remain intact.

Speaker 2

What there was a lot of in that storm was poles that broke off and putting wires back up is a relatively simple thing to do. Getting new poles to having enough poles in stock to support that. It's a different story and it's a different style of storm response. So first thing is we network and how we deal with that storm response and how you can get there.

Speaker 2

But what solar wind did, which did the same in 2013, 2014 storms was it showed us a pattern where you get a stormy day on a cold day and a stormy day with a cold day. So rather than having a storm that hits you, you deal with it, you tidy up a few days later, everything's fine. We were in a position where it was a bit more sustained and certainly we found in an awful license areas back in 2013 that we were we were just about keeping up with what was happening on a stormy day during that story day in the next quiet day.

Speaker 2

So we were ready to go again. But the South were less luckily, and there was a lot more flooding in the Southeast as well at the same time. So if you weren't clearing up in that one or two day period, by the time more bad weather came in, you end up with a cumulative effect. And then all the things that you got customers being off for a long time and it is not fun to be off supply for a long time.

Speaker 2

I think there's a market for battery storage. I think customers might want to become more resilient. Storage is getting cheaper. Certainly we're now seeing if customers install rooftop generation rooftop solar panels. They tend to install battery storage as well. So I think there's an element of that does not become I don't know that that the new petrol generator for that rural customer that's in the middle of nowhere but yeah, I think we see a change in customers views and what they want to do.

Speaker 1

You've actually segway on next nicely into the next sort of batch of sauce or that particular theme as well, which was around electrical energy storage systems. We get a lot of inquiries from people that solar PV in the night should we have our own generation or should we feed back to the grid? You know, we're only getting this much pence per kilowatt.

Speaker 1

What's the point should be going to that. I mean, how would the grid cope if everyone decides to feed back themselves? Do you have your own storage for that is how would that actually work as well?

Speaker 2

We do a lot of modeling of what we expect to see and certainly the domestic scale. What? Well, a customer feedback into their network may not even leave your street. It will get used by customers. And if everybody does that, that's a different story. If everybody does it everywhere, that we have got a problem because nobody's nobody's putting a demand on the grid.

Speaker 2

If they're all adding generation to it, I don't see that is going to be happening. But yeah, we'll model that change and we'll model the aggregate of that change based with the increased loads that we're seeing. And I haven't got too much of a problem with people feeding back onto the network, especially as we're seeing demand growing on the network.

Speaker 2

So it just allows more local energy to be reused. But you are right about the fact that a export tariff, a feed into the grid tariff, isn't the most beneficial thing in the world. And I think if if I were fighting a system now, I would probably, if I could afford it, look to fit solar panels and storage and make use of that energy a later time in the day.

Speaker 2

So, you know, if you store your solar panels, work best during the middle of the day when you might be out of work in the evening, then use that energy yourself rather than giving it back to the grid.

Speaker 1

So there's, I think probably more when are you seeing this or this, more of the there's been quite a lot of discussion around and I suppose it's been in the press a lot as well around a public health like energy system instead of being in private ownership of different companies and how that could help working towards net zero.

Speaker 1

I know this is a really probably quite a tricky question for both of you, but it just seems there's been a lot of them would be poor of us to ignore those. Do you have any comments on that or any opinions?

Speaker 2

So I think you're asking Molano a question, but I was also really brief comment. Regardless, everything.

Speaker 1

That it floors you. Sorry, I.

Speaker 2

Was also raised in you. You know, I said earlier, if I read the chart distracted, I got.

Speaker 1

Distracted by the chart because there's actually such lot we could cover. But I.

Speaker 2

Was distracted.

Speaker 3

By.

Speaker 2

Robyn's question. But it's up at the moment is still growing. We should be using less. Yet the demand is growing because we're taking energy away from gas and electricity. If you look at what's happened before, it's starting to tick up now. But demand in the UK was dropping as people move to low energy light bulbs. So yeah, demand will grow up to 2050, but it will be at the expense of gas and carbon fuels.

Speaker 1

At that point. One of the there's lots of the another theme I guess is is, you know, people saying that there isn't the capacity in the area or they've had wait or what happens if if they can't can't connect in when they want to connect in or and I, I guess I have a question around your last slide.

Speaker 1

Was it come and engage with us and talk to us and talk to us early. And we can we can help you work out when and how. But in terms of our expectation of immediate power and immediate ability to have electricity whenever we want it, but also the the actual necessity to design systems that work and and move onto a much more electrified basis for heating and for for everything, essentially, largely if we're going to decarbonize a built environment, you know, do you sometimes get frustrated that you're you're working you're clearly working very hard to engage people and deliver what's needed.

Speaker 1

But there is an expectation that you were supposed to be there already or that they don't have to wait in a queue.

Speaker 2

And I'm going to. Yes. So some elements that are really doing things. Yes. Go and engage you this early about your specific connection. But also we've got it out there so too. So distribution system operator two that there's a lot of modeling and a lot of network forecasting, talking to customers, stakeholders, local authorities, looking at the government reports and forecasting models as well to really try to model what's going to happen to the network over the next five, ten, 20, 40 years so that we know what kind of net we need to be building today for the future.

Speaker 1

I think in our previous conversation, as we were setting up for this webinar, I mentioned that some of our larger historic states nationally, they need to decarbonize that the housing stock and their sites. And my question was, you know, if they get in touch and say, look, I've got this portfolio that's across all nationally and I have this either buildings or villages sometimes that I need to move on to electric heating that you'd be able to to sort of say, look, this one will come first and this area is being reinforced first.

Speaker 1

You'll have capacity first here. And maybe, you know, five years time it will be over here. Is that is that a good way of looking at it? That's it. In terms of how they should engage and how we could potentially deliver a more systematic way of decarbonizing our buildings.

Speaker 2

I guess the short answer to that is yes. If you've got a list, we could almost provide you with a quote, a read up on green status, of which buildings would be quicker, cheaper and easier to collect, which would be all the longer, more expensive. So yeah, the short answer to that question is yes, thank you.

Speaker 3

I'm going to have to interject there. I'm afraid we have actually run out of time. People have other commitments they need to meet. So thank you, Paul Kastamonu and Caroline, thank you so much for an absolutely wonderful presentation and apologies to anyone, if you feel that your questions haven't been answered in this webinar, however, we will cura all the questions from this webinar and attempt to provide an answer for you via the website, the historic England website, where we post the links to the recordings.

Speaker 3

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Speaker 3

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Speaker 3

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Speaker 3

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Speaker 3

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Speaker 3

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Speaker 3

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Speaker 3

Take care.