The move to net zero will make customers ever more dependent on a secure, affordable, and reliable electrical supply. There is greater potential to impact customers in vulnerable situations as well as to inadvertently create new forms of vulnerability. Current Distribution Future Energy Scenarios (DFES) don’t effectively take consumer vulnerability into account. Vulnerability Future Energy Scenarios (VFES) aims to better understand potential changes and impacts. VFES will explore a triangulated method using innovative forecasting techniques which, if successful, could better inform operational practises. It may also allow better informed investment planning which takes vulnerability into account and won’t leave vulnerable customers and communities behind.
Benefits
VFES is a vulnerability-based project with aims of benefiting consumers in vulnerable situations by predicting the scale and location of such situations as well as what new situations may cause vulnerability.
Learnings
Outcomes
The research so far has been twofold:
8.The Smith Institute have concluded their Machine Learning activity successfully. After identifying seven distinct groups oflocations that SSEN service, with each group having similar demographic features driving vulnerability, and each requiringdistinct strategies for investment of time, effort, and money, as well as by government and other organisations to address theunderlying drivers of vulnerability.
These seven groups cover different locations across England and Scotland: The Smith Institute suggest that a single investmentstrategy for Scotland and another for the south of England is insufficient to address the varying causes of vulnerability thatcustomers experience. The Smith Institute indicate the need for investment strategies that are geographically tailored toaddress locational drivers of vulnerability. Such strategies might be tailored help for the elderly and those who require ongoingcare in one location, but tailored help for those who claim mental health or disability benefits in another.
To identify groups with common drivers of vulnerability, The Smith Institute performed a mathematical analysis ofdemographic data and of SSEN Priority Services Register, using machine learning to model the complex relationships that existbetween the two. The Smith Institute then used these complex relationships to understand what drives vulnerability in eachlocation that SSEN service. Finally, The Smith Institute found natural groupings of vulnerability drivers using these results,attaining a mathematically sound and data driven understanding of the vulnerability landscape across SSEN’s areas ofoperation.
9.The foresighting work by a team from Imperial College London is nearly complete and producing interesting results. The report asks:
a. How will the changes of the future reshape our relationships with energy? and
b. What new vulnerabilities might emerge as we shift towards net zero?
The report will then present a foresighting project that explores how lifestyles might change in the future, and how this will shape our relationships with energy. It delivers a set of strategic visions for the energy sector that can be used as tools to embed vulnerability considerations into future network planning.
The next phase is to conduct an expert review commencing in July, when the final foresighting report is agreed. This expert review will look to compare the vastly different worlds of Machine Learning and Academic Research, along with the differing messages coming from the calculations and the foresighting.
The review will focus on where there is commonality with Machine Learning and the foresighting work. It should also look for suggestions which could be adopted within the energy industry and how these may be able to benefit consumers.
Lessons Learnt
The lessons learned will be drawn together during the final report. This is intentional as the academia foresighting methodology, and the machine learning method used in the first two thirds of VFES are vastly different ways of approaching the subject matter.
The final report will include not only lessons learned, but suggestions for next steps, or ways in which the industry could embed and improve upon the findings.
