Northern Powergrid announces milestone step in local energy independence

Northern Powergrid has announced a significant step in giving communities greater autonomy over their electricity supply, as part of a collaborative project with TNEI and LCP Delta, funded by Ofgem.

The Community DSO project aims to enable communities to pursue their own decarbonisation agenda and have greater control over their own energy and assets. This will strengthen local energy independence and incentives for local decarbonisation, delivering cost and carbon savings.

The first Community DSO network trial has been awarded to the Condor Consortium, led by Electric Places CIC.

The Condor Consortium is a pioneering effort to unlock low voltage (LV) flexibility through innovative solutions in energy network management, demand-side flexibility, energy markets, and customer inclusion.

The collaboration involves several key partners, including SMPnet, NODES, Cleanwatts, ev.energy, Energise Barnsley, Whitley Bay Big Local and Knaresborough Community Energy.

Read the full press release!

Northern Powergrid is the electricity distribution network operator for the North East, Yorkshire and northern Lincolnshire. It delivers power safely and reliably to 8 million customers across 3.9 million homes and businesses through its network of more than 63,000 substations and 60,000 miles of overhead power lines and underground cables, spanning some 9,650 square miles.

Electric Places/Electric Corby CIC is a Community Interest Company founded in 2012 with a mission to support economic growth and regeneration by developing and promoting projects that deliver low carbon and renewable energy, sustainable homes and low emissions mobility. It has over a decade of experience in successfully establishing and managing flexible energy communities across the UK, Spain, and Portugal.

SMPnet is a committed partner in the energy sector, providing advanced power grid management solutions rooted in technical excellence. Our Omega suite of products seamlessly integrates with existing network systems, focusing on enhancing network capacity, reducing costs, and enabling the integration of more renewable energy assets. We work alongside utilities and DSOs, offering dependable solutions and support to streamline power grid operations and facilitate the transition to a more sustainable energy future.

Cleanwatts delivers energy digitization tools to all sectors, deploying virtual power plants (VPPs) and advanced flexibility tools in the market as well as novel business models to engage with Energy Communities. CW has a long track record, monitoring 225,000 devices daily, receiving real time data from over 2,700 locations and managing more than 1TWh yearly for a wide range of C&I customers, residential, public entities and utilities.

ev.energy is a Certified B Corporation® with a mission to make EV charging greener, cheaper, and smarter for utilities and their customers. Its end-to-end software platform wirelessly connects to a range of electric vehicles and chargers to intelligently manage EV charging while working with utilities to put cash back in customers’ wallets for charging at grid-friendly times. With a global base of utility, vehicle OEM, and EVSE partners, ev.energy manages more than 150,000 EVs on its platform each day.

Energise Barnsley is an active energy community organisation that breaks down the engineer-dominated language of the energy industry so that low income and vulnerable households can benefit from a just transition to a low-carbon local flexible energy market.

Whitley Bay Big Local is a community led charity empowering local people to take action on issues that are important to them. The Community centre in Whitley Bay Town Centre has been retrofitted as a low carbon, sustainable Community Hub aiming to inform, inspire and support local people making their lives environmentally sustainable.

Knaresborough Community Energy is a Community Benefit Society working on providing renewable energy for the people and businesses of Knaresborough. Working in liaison with Knaresborough Town Council, who own the building, Knaresborough Community Energy has a community centre in a deprived part of town that offers a wellbeing hub and is well used in the town.

NODES is a Norwegian technology company which is paving the way for a more sustainable future. 

Our award-winning market design and technology platform is helping speed up the energy transition by unlocking the value of flexibility within the electricity network. 

We use this technology to operate local flexibility markets.