7. Enable and manage

Growing use of electric vehicles to decarbonise transport and the transition away from reliance on fossil fuels for heating will place greater demand on the electricity network. As a result, investing to improve resilience and capacity will be essential over the coming years to support the drive to net zero.

“Energy networks play a key role in facilitating customers’ decarbonisation aims and objectives and they also need to facilitate the execution of government policies around decarbonisation too,” explained Energy Networks Association director of electricity systems David Boyer. “However, supporting that demand and enabling those policy objectives isn’t straightforward.”

Energy Networks Association’s David Boyer said investment in the electricity network is critical to decarbonisation

Demand for new connections is already increasing and David reports that in 2022, transmission applications – requests for new electricity supplies – exceeded 164GW which has resulted in a significant queue. “We need to respond to make sure we can provide access to the grid for these projects,” said David.

To respond, infrastructure investment is needed but the current planning structure creates challenges, according to David.

Investing for the future

Coordination across the electricity supply system, as well as with the gas networks, is a key role for the Energy Networks Association which represents 12 network operators across the UK and Ireland.

Despite the challenges in building new infrastructure, David said that members of the association are investing, with £40bn expected to be spent on reinforcement of the existing network and new infrastructure over the next five years.

Energy networks play a key role in facilitating customers’ decarbonisation aims.

Nonetheless, David explained that what to invest in, when and how is challenging for the association’s members with a raft of government policy and publications issued over the last couple of years that impact or inform the need for network infrastructure. “There has been a lot of movement in this space and politics cannot be avoided in this context,” said David, who also pointed to external factors like the war in Ukraine and its effect on driving the cost of living crisis as also having an impact on energy network investment decisions.

Driving innovation

Research led by the Energy Network Association is supporting the industry to cope with the change needed to back decarbonisation, as well as to improve efficiency in the existing network. As an example, David said that the Innovation Programme is integrating and rolling out new technologies, practices and markets and help to tackle the net zero challenge. He added that the focus was not just on electricity though and the association’s Gas Goes Green programme is researching, co-ordinating and implementing the changes needed to convert Britain’s 284,000km of gas network infrastructure to run on hydrogen and biomethane.

Although the UK currently has one of the most reliable energy networks in the world, David concluded that increased focus on resilience now will also be key to supporting greater reliance on the electricity network too.