Planning Regional Infrastructure in a Digital Environment (PRIDE Beta)

Project Summary

Planning Regional Infrastructure in a Digital Environment (PRIDE) combines novel governance structures with a cutting-edge digital tool that lets local authorities, energy networks and regional stakeholders collaborate to deliver local and regional decarbonisation ambitions. The digital tool supports local authorities and networks to quickly and cost-effectively share detailed information to inform planning and investment activities. The governance structure then brings together local and regional stakeholders - informed by data in the digital tool - to work together to make more informed strategic decisions, accelerating netzero delivery.

• Problem(s)

  A critical barrier to meeting the UK’s climate targets is the lack of dynamic information exchange between stakeholders to enable integrated local and regional planning for the decarbonisation of major energy demands.

  Energy networks struggle to respond to changing local energy demand due to limited visibility of key local data and information, while local authorities are neither required nor resourced to deliver consistent Local Area Energy Plans (LAEPs).

  Technical barriers, such as non-interoperable data between LAEP and network modelling, also makes integrated planning difficult. PRIDE Alpha demonstrated that this creates uncertainty and hinders decisions on infrastructure investment.

  How our perception/solution has evolved

  The Discovery and Alpha phases of PRIDE showed how an interactive digital tool and governance structure can facilitate dynamic, integrated and cost-effective local authority and network planning.

  Reflecting Alpha user experience, breaking the barriers of data interoperability and creating more iterative information flows between local authorities and networks is a key Beta priority, enabling both to make more agile and confident decarbonisation decisions.

  Our perception of the problem has also evolved with growing emphasis on Regional Energy Strategic Planners (RESPs). PRIDE’s work has already informed RESP development. There is now a heightened need to demonstrate information sharing and associated governance that can aggregate to support regional collaboration.

  Challenge Aim

  Using pioneering information exchange to support multi-stakeholder decision making, PRIDE is developing technical and political solutions to integrated planning to enable the acceleration of the decarbonisation of major energy demands, in a way that reduces costs and timescales for all stakeholders (Round 2, Challenge 4). Through digital and governance innovations, our approach facilitates the integration of multiple demands and demand-side solutions.

  To meet this Innovation Challenge, PRIDE Beta will:

  1. Unlock dynamic and integrated energy planning and investment. Development of the digital tool will enable local authorities to more easily develop cross-vector digital infrastructure plans, creating a live feedback loop between networks, local authorities and regional stakeholders to support integrated planning for the decarbonisation of major energy demands.
  2. Demonstrate processes for local-regional information exchange and governance. Alpha established a new governance structure in the West Midlands Combined Authority (WMCA) area to support decision making on the decarbonisation of heat and transport at local and regional levels. This structure will be expanded to different geographies and functionality developed to enable aggregation of integrated plans to a regional level, tested within new governance structures in practise.

  Key users in the Project and of the innovation are:

  Distribution System Operators (DSO): PRIDE Beta will directly inform DSO planning and network development, operation, flexibility market design and stakeholder requirements. PRIDE Alpha has demonstrated the value of stronger engagement and more granular, temporal, stakeholder-verified data. Beta will deepen this work to establish more efficient ways for DSOs to work with LAs and stakeholders to glean the information they require to make confident decarbonisation investment decisions.

  Local authorities: Through PRIDE, local energy, net zero, planning, waste and housing teams benefited from a cost-effective process to develop LAEPs and safely share commercially sensitive information – including large energy user plans – with networks. Per Alpha feedback, Beta will develop new interoperable data and functionalities, while the governance structure will provide new opportunities for regional collaboration on local and regional priorities.

  Regional Energy Strategic Planners (RESP): The RESP will require sight of local authority and network plans to deliver integrated regional planning. How this will work in practice needs to be tested before it is rolled out by NESO. Beta will demonstrate how the digital tool can provide “live” data and aggregate local plans into a regional view, with the governance structure demonstrating key processes for regional information sharing and decision making.

• Innovation Justification

  PRIDE develops technical and political solutions to integrated energy system planning to facilitate connection of decarbonised heat and transport demand, reducing overall cost and timescales (Round 2, Challenge 4). The Beta phase will establish dynamic governance and information sharing mechanisms to unlock integrated local-regional energy planning and investment.

  PRIDE Alpha demonstrated the value of digital tools to support agile, cost-effective energy planning within local authorities and between local authorities and networks in the West Midlands Combined Authority area. This phase established two stakeholder governance panels to support identification and collaboration on regional energy opportunities.

  Key lessons:

  • The digital tool enabled cost-effective LAEP development, but data coverage and interoperability are barriers to collaboration, slowing investment.
  • The governance mechanism can support local-regional collaboration, but there is a need to test this on a wider scale and in different settings to demonstrate replicability.

  Beta builds on these to:

  • Break down interoperability barriers between networks and local authorities and enable more iterative information sharing within the digital platform.
  • Incorporate and enhance low-voltage data from gas networks, heat network zones, industrial clusters, and network scenario modelling.
  • Develop functionality and test governance to support regional aggregation of plans across geographies, including: the wider (RESP) West Midlands; South Wales where static LAEPs have been developed; and Oxfordshire where multiple networks operate in a single area.

  Learning from the other projects include:

  • LEO-N facilitates integrated energy demand decarbonisation at a hyper-local level, adopting similar principles to PRIDE for behind-the-meter solutions. PRIDE is in close contact with LEON, leveraging insights from its street- and county-level coordination activities.
  • Powering Wales Renewably (PWR) develops a digital twin of transmission and distribution in Wales. PWR Discovery identified a need for data standardisation, and highlighted that governance is a key component of integrated planning which we are building on.
  •  NIA projects RESOP, Equinox, Defender, Venice and EPIC provide lessons on flexibility, energy efficiency impacts, integrated future load profiles.

  We actively engaged stakeholders throughout Alpha maximise value from our innovation. Ofgem and NESO were closely involved in all activities to challenge assumptions (both ways), enabling our innovation to respond to and inform real-time policy and regulatory change.

  We conducted ongoing engagement with project partners (local authorities, regional infrastructure providers) so that the innovation could iterate to reflect their needs as they evolved.

  Open promotion of project activities through the Energy Capital Partnership and sector forums has resulted in significant interest from new local authorities and stakeholders.

  Project Innovations

  The digital platform has shifted from TRL5 in Discovery to TRL7 today (TRL8 by the end of Beta).

  A limited number of tools/processes exist for cost-effective LAEP development and dynamic information sharing between networks, local authorities and other stakeholders. PRIDE is unlocking this functionality for effective integrated decarbonisation planning.

  No consistent processes exist for integrated local-regional information exchange and decision making. PRIDE Beta will establish replicable governance and information sharing processes which facilitate aggregation of integrated plans to regional level in different areas and demonstrate how this can enable multi-vector investment decisions about local and regional energy priorities.

  Why the project cannot be funded elsewhere

  PRIDE Beta enables testing of solutions at meaningful scales by the DSO before their adoption by other network operators. The trial of new governance and information sharing mechanisms are not suitable for exploration under business-as-usual and there is no other funding stream that supports development of systems for multi-vector energy planning and network impacts.

  Counterfactual

  The counterfactual solution requires the use of consulting engineers to replace the missing local authority skills and capacity. This approach is significantly more costly and fails to grow and embed skills and capacity in local authorities. No funding models exist for ongoing consultant support and non-digital human-resource based approaches are unsustainable

• Key Outputs

  Beta outcomes 

  We will:

  • Demonstrate the practical, technical and organisational steps to delivering integrated local and regional energy planning between local authorities, networks, regional stakeholders and the RESP to ensure network and non-network investment supports the decarbonisation of major energy demand in places
  • Demonstrate how digital tools can support more dynamic information flows and decisionmaking between stakeholders.
  • Test and refine new tool data and functionalities for whole-system coverage and interoperability between local authorities and networks.
  • Pilot functionality to support aggregation of local data into integrated regional plans.

  Beta Outputs 

  1. A large-scale trial with up to 400 users for the technical solution across 23 local authorities. User research and testing will validate the functional and non-functional specifications of the technical solution. New software prototypes will be developed for three use cases:
  2. Use Case 1: demonstrate the Local Authority requirement to be able to digitalise LAEP data outputs on to the LAEP+ tool and dynamically update plans.
  3. Use Case 2: demonstrate the Networks requirement to be able to programmatically query, modify and reflect changes in digital LAEPs and their impact of DFES and strategic network planning.
  4. Use Case 3: demonstrate the RESP requirement to be able to view and analyse subregional LAEPs into an aggregated regional plan and to modify assumptions and reflect changes in coordinated whole systems approaches.
  5. Demonstration and evaluation of operational trial for local-regional energy information exchange and decision making. Beta will expand regional infrastructure governance bodies successfully piloted in Alpha by the WMCA to include a wider pool of West Midlands local authorities and replicate these in the South Wales area.
  6. We will demonstrate responsive data interoperability between LAEP, DFES and FES modelling functions.
  7. We will work with Ofgem's local governance team who will observe the trial to understand regulatory barriers to whole system coordination. Feedback from the trial will be documented to inform RESP development and regulatory amendments.

  Responsibilities 

  Advanced Infrastructure will lead outputs 1-4 with the support of NGED, WMCA an NESO. Regen will lead Output 5-7 with the support of all partners.

  Dissemination

  Informing development of regional and local energy planning: We will share outputs directly for OfGEM to consider, including through the OfGEM Local Governance Working Group, and will feed learnings directly into the RESP detail design process (supported by project partner NESO to ensure alignment with emerging thinking). Our governance models and processes will be fully shared and publicised for stakeholders to explore and replicate. We will share findings throughout the project through existing engagement channels including M12, the Local Government Association, Regen local authority membership and Net Zero Hubs.

  Promoting to the sector: We will conduct show and tells as part of the NGED Innovation Conference (26toZERO), WMCA monthly Collaboration Days, and the annual Energy Capital Conference, and target wider innovation forums such as Utility Week and Innovate UK’s Thriving Places programme. We will also sponsor a deep-dive discussion of PRIDE on the Local Zero podcast (18,200 unique listeners since 2022, 800-1100 listens per episode) and cross-promote with other relevant media platforms.

  Turning outputs into action: We will have a direct link with West Midlands Local Net Zero Accelerator Programme where the tool and decision-making structures will be used to develop infrastructure opportunities which opens opportunities to disseminate to a wider investment community as facilitated by GFI and UKIB. We will continue to work collaboratively and transparently with partners, sharing and testing our thinking as it develops with the sector and relevant stakeholders. We will promote all project outputs publicly and work directly with other innovation projects

• Monthly updates

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