Distribution Future Energy Scenarios

A key part of DSO’s strategic planning process is understanding how communities’ needs of the network will evolve moving forward.

To understand these trends, we partner with Regen to produce our Distribution Future Energy Scenarios, or DFES. In this annual process, we forecast future load growth (both demand and generation) on our network in four societal and consumer transformation scenarios to 2050.

We use National Grid ESO's Future Energy Scenarios (FES) as the framework for our DFES. Through stakeholder engagement and local evidence gathering, we tailor our projections to our two distribution licence areas in central southern England and northern Scotland. This includes data and insights that local authorities share with us through their local area energy planning.

DFES Publications

In addition to the DFES reports below, you can view DFES datasets via our Data Portal, linked on the right.

Our DFES forecasts help us understand when, where, and how many new connections we can anticipate in different pathways to net zero by 2045 in Scotland and 2050 in England. These forecasts serve as a key input to our strategic network investment process, which you can read more about on our strategic network planning process webpage.

Stakeholder input is a key data infeed to our DFES forecasts. Sharing your plans with us will help to ensure we build a network that’s fit for local plans and ambitions.

If you are a local authority, infrastructure developer, or other organisation served by our network, we want to know about your longer-term development plans that may change your electricity needs moving forward. Get in touch with us at whole.system.distribution@sse.com so we can work with you.