Northern Powergrid's potential future scenarios, both interpreted from the 2024 National Grid Future Energy Scenarios, and a Northern Powergrid Reference Scenario fitting the ENA Open Networks DNO Scenario criteria.
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This tool shows how we can achieve net-zero carbon emissions by 2050. As part of our planning for decarbonisation we considered a range of possible scenarios in our region. We are publishing our modelling results here for our stakeholders to use, apply to their own models, review, and comment upon. The five scenarios are:
Details of assumptions and how these scenarios were built can be found below.
These regional pathways together form our 2024 Distribution Future Energy Scenarios (DFES). They also incorporate feedback from stakeholders who engaged with our 2023 DFES published in December 2023.
Previous versions of Northern Powergrid's DFES can be found for 2020, 2021, 2022 and 2023, or choose from all our visualisations.
If you have any comments, questions or feedback on our scenarios, please send them to System.Forecasting@Northernpowergrid.com
This scenario is highly ambitious and aligns with our stakeholders' vision, getting on the path early to achieve net-zero by 2050. The scenario relies on intensive investment in low carbon technologies, as well as early action from government and a high level of engagement from consumers, in order to achieve aggressive rollout rates, especially of EVs and heat pumps.
Net zero met through a mix of electrification and hydrogen, with hydrogen mainly around industrial clusters. Strong consumer engagement in the transition, with demand shifting, and smart homes and electric vehicles providing flexibility to the grid.
M.Net zero met through fast progress for hydrogen in industry and heat. There are low levels of consumer engagement.
Net zero is met through mainly electrified demand. Consumers are highly engaged in the energy transition through smart technologies that reduce energy demands, such as electric heat pumps and electric vehicles.
Net zero is missed, although some progress is made toward decarbonisation compared to today.
To display data on a map, we need unique polygons for each Primary Substation. To do this we used customer postcodes to identify each ONS Output Area (2021) supplied by each Primary substation using a lookup table from ONS. Output Areas with fewer than 5 customers connected to a Primary substation were excluded. This reduced data issues in the customer database e.g. mistyped customer postcodes. We constructed representative geographies for each Primary substation from the remaining Output Areas. In cases where multiple Primary substations serve the same Output Area, that Output Area was assigned to the Primary substation that serves the most customers. For the 2024 DFES, we have built new polygons for each Primary substation in Northern Powergrid's network using the latest postcode data and the latest Output Areas produced from the 2021 Census.
Knowing the Output Areas connected to each Primary allows us to also build a mapping from Primary to Local Authority.
Some Primary Substation geographies may appear larger on the map, particularly in rural areas where network connectivity may be concentrated in specific parts of an Output Area. The areas shown here are representative for the purpose of showing the Distribution Future Energy Scenario model data and should not be relied upon for checking connectivity or to assess the terms of connection for specific premises.
In the Primaries layer we have included Bulk and Grid Supply Points as "pseudo-Primaries" to give Local Authorities the full picture in their area. These pseudo-Primaries generally appear as small cut-outs. They are used to include large generation and storage connections that are not seen by Primary substations.
The model predictions have been created by Primary substation and that is the definitive view. The Local Authority view is constructed from the Primary substation values. We have found the proportion of a Primary substation's customers in each Local Authority district (as defined in April 2019) by adding up the customers in each Output Area belonging to a specific Local Authority district. For some parameters (e.g. electric vehicles) the values from the Primary substations are apportioned to each Local Authority District and then summated into totals. For values which can't be summated (e.g. Peak demand) we have shown the maximum value for any Primary substation that serves a Local Authority.
For Local Authorities which are only partially in Northern Powergrid areas the model only produces forecasts for the area served by Northern Powergrid, so it is not a total Local Authority forecast. Examples of these Local Authorities partially served by Northern Powergrid include Bassetlaw, East Lindsey, High Peak, North East Derbyshire, North East Lincolnshire, North Lincolnshire, Pendle, West Lindsey.
There are some additional major sites situated within a Local Authority area which distribute into many Local Authority areas and which may have further direct connections for large wind, solar and other generation. Direct connects to Grid Supply Points (connection points between the GB transmission network and Northern Powergrid’s distribution network), comprised of wind generation and co-located storage, have been allocated to local authorities on the basis of the greenspace available to build wind farms, while direct connections to Bulk Supply Points (connection points on NPg's network which are fed from the Grid Supply Points and supply the primary substations) have been included on the basis of the location of Primary substations fed by each bulk supply point. The underlying data can be downloaded from our Open Data Portal.
DFES 2024 data files can be found on the Northern Powergrid Data Portal and supporting workbooks at Datamill North and the Primary substation data files powering this visualisation are stored in this repository on Github.
If you enter a full postcode in the search, we use FindThatPostcode (© David Kane) to look up associated geographic areas. For the Primary Substation view we use the latitude/longitude of the postcode centroid to calculate the appropriate place.