Project Summary
Regional Energy Strategic Modelling (RESM) aims to develop and test a system dynamics tool that could be used by a Regional Energy Strategic Planner (RESP) to deliver socio-economic development of regional decarbonisation pathways across Britain.
The RESM will place vulnerable consumers at the core of its decision-making, whilst establishing a top-down approach to deliver more coordinated local energy planning which is cognisant of the needs of a modern, flexible multi-vector national transmission system. This first-of-its-kind project aims to deliver the first regional energy plan for North East England, establishing joined up thinking between gas, electricity and water distribution networks.
Innovation Justification
This project will explore the higher systems-level planning functions of a RESP and its broad function as a regional cog in the national energy system, over the long-term horizon to 2050 and beyond. A first-of-its-kind, it will develop a regional multi-vector strategic energy plan for the North East England, strategically steering the development of regional backbone infrastructure, cognisant of demographic and social characteristics unique to an individual region, and with vulnerable customers placed at the core of its decision-making. It will complement the exploratory work being delivered on the community-level functions; for instance combined-authority York & North Yorkshire Local Area Energy Plan (https://democracy.york.gov.uk/documents/s164227/Annex%20A_LAEP%20Overarching.pd
f) and the PRIDE and RESOP innovation projects, led by National Grid Electricity Distribution (NGED) and Scottish and Southern Energy Networks (SSEN), respectively.
The Common Planning Pathway, a DNV project led by National Gas Transmission (NGT), illustrated the importance and significance of human-factors in a plausible trajectory of a net zero pathway for the UK energy system. Our project will leverage the system dynamics methodology from this project and develop a topdown approach to join-up national objectives with local area energy planning for each region of Britain, beginning with North East England. The outcome will be an innovative tool for developing regional pathways, factoring in the critical role of 'system inertia', which sets it apart from many existing 'back-casted' alternatives currently used in energy system discourse.
The regional energy system model will be informed by unique datasets for North East England. Leveraging the customer vulnerability mapping tool developed by NGN, we will ensure that the impact of this project is felt foremost among theregion's most deprived areas. The model will be adaptable to each region of Britain and enable robust scenario-based planning to ensure that proposedinfrastructure investments are coordinated and follow an established, affordable region-specific trajectory to net zero. Outputs will ensure that the evidence base for strategic projects is holistic and robust, to underpin decisions made (primarily) through the RIIO-3 (and ED2) price control mechanisms. We aim to progress the TRL from level 4 to level 5.
Without this project, a newly established RESP will be limited in its tools and capabilities to challenge the status quo; i.e. continued development of gas, electricity and water networks plans in silos, with some (limited) smart optimisation.
Impacts and Benefits
Wide-ranging benefits can be envisaged in terms of societal, environmental and economic effects, which will enable Britain to advance towards a more resilient and democratised energy system.
Societal - The regional energy system model delivers societal benefits, in the form of a feedback loop to support development of LAEP's, enabling democratisation of energy at a local level and protecting vulnerable customers, whilst conforming to the needs of the national energy system and delivering on Government ambitions for decarbonisation.
Economic - The strategic planning function of a RESP is a critical enabler for the timely development of infrastructure with adequate capacity to support the flow of molecules and electrons between national systems and local systems. Developing a coordinated approach towards energy system planning could result in net economic benefits to consumers of between £0.9-3.2bn/year to £163-252bn over a 25-year-period according to Future of local energy institutions and governance (ofgem.gov.uk) (https://www.ofgem.gov.uk/sites/default/files/2023- 02/Future%20of%20local%20energy%20institutions%20and%20governance.pdf).
Economic - Establishing much stronger coordination with water utilities will lead to more cost-optimal regional decision making on the siting of electrolysers for green hydrogen production whilst being cognisant of water availability, storage and infrastructure capacity. To put the scale of this challenge into context, to unlock the Government's 2030 target of 5GW of electrolyser capacity in a single region will require more than 750,000 litres of water per hour at full operational capacity, approximately equivalent to the water needs of a populated town the size of Middlesborough.
Environmental - Whilst no trivial task, we can approximate at a high-level that energy-related CO₂ emissions in the UK are distributed regionally more or less proportional to the region's share in methane demand, which is in the order of 30 million tonnes of CO₂ per year in North East England. The pastoral role of the utilities and a RESP has never been more important than now in driving down regional emissions whilst protecting the needs of energy consumers in vulnerable communities. Coordinated planning of decommissioning of carbon-emitting assets where needed will be a key outcome of this project.
