Most businesses keep their best ideas to themselves; it seems like a rational and natural thing to do, and doing so can give that business a commercial advantage over competitors. Giving away innovative ideas could be considered very odd, or even foolish; but why should that be? Why shouldn't businesses share their best ideas with each other, especially if those ideas are intended to help customers in vulnerable situations?

Sharing great ideas is exactly what the six Distribution Network Operators (DNOs) did last week at an event in London. The event, hosted by the charity National Energy Action, brought together Scottish and Southern Electricity Networks (SSEN) and the other five DNOs* in the UK to openly present a couple of their best ideas to each other, and other important stakeholders, all in one room.

It was really refreshing to be part of such open collaboration, all aimed at improving services and support for consumers right across the UK.

SSEN has dozens of initiatives and business-as-usual processes to help consumers in vulnerable situations, so choosing just two to present was tricky. We settled on one that helps to elevate fuel poverty and one that provides wider benefits right across both of our distribution regions, they were:

1. Gap Funding - where we will pay for preparation works in the homes of vulnerable customers to allow energy efficiency installations to go ahead which couldn't otherwise happen. The first gap funding project has already helped 34 customers in the north of Scotland and is providing a great return on our investment. So good, in fact, that for every £10 we spend customers are seeing £300 worth of benefits - something all the attendees at the event were impressed with.

2. Vulnerability Mapping is a bespoke tool which provides detailed demographic information about the communities served by SSEN. This mapping is already helping to make informed decisions about where additional assistance might be needed during power cuts and planned supply interruptions, and which communities could benefit from additional resilience planning or more promotion of the Priority Service Register (PSR). It is even being used to plan more effective partnerships and bring a human and community element into network investment decisions.

Ideas from the other DNOs didn't disappoint either. We heard ideas as diverse as giving vulnerable customers firewood from trees cut near electricity networks to signing customers up for PSR at flu inoculation sessions.
We picked up ideas that we can adopt to help customers in both our regions. I certainly came away confident that customers will be the main beneficiaries from DNOs and stakeholders working closer together to tackle vulnerability.

Helping customers to get out of fuel poverty and finding better ways to assist customers during power cuts are priorities for SSEN and for me personally. If you have any ideas, or would like further information about anything SSEN is doing to help customers in vulnerable situations, I'd love to hear from you and you can contact me by email - stakeholder.engagementsse.com.

  • *The five DNOs, other than Scottish and Southern Electricity Networks, are: Electricity North West, Northern Powergrid, SP Energy Networks, UK Power Networks and Western Power Distribution.
  • If you, or anyone you know, would benefit from being on the PSR you can see further details and sign up here.