Reducing energy usage is something we would all like to do or know we should be doing.

Scottish and Southern Electricity Networks (SSEN), your local distribution network operator, would like to pay you and others in your area for delivering reductions in electricity usage at peak times and is hosting a webinar on Friday 5 April to explain this process and the benefits that Social Constraint Management Zones (SCMZ) can bring to communities in central southern England.

Registration details for the webinar, which will run between 12:00 and 13:30 on Friday 5 April, can be found here and will give an overview of SSEN's process for accessing payment to reduce energy usage, next steps and how SSEN is encouraging social benefits such as carbon reductions and support for fuel poor alongside reducing peak electricity demand.

As electricity demand increases load within the UK grows through technologies such as electric vehicles and electric heating, alongside requirements for new connections in growth areas of the country, there will be increased strain on distribution networks. Given the localised nature of SSEN's network this strain can occur in precise areas and bottlenecks within the system.

Traditionally this constraint is addressed through network reinforcement. However, the alternative is to reduce the spread of electricity use, to alter or reduce electricity consumption. SSEN is exploring these options and using the money saved by avoiding reinforcement, on incentivising smart solutions such as: energy efficiency, batteries, behaviour change and commercial mechanisms.

Every unit of energy saved from the network has a value in freeing up capacity. SSEN will be providing a local and easy to understand 'flexibility market' allowing residents to bid for funding of an initiative to reduce electricity demand at peak times.

This funding is completely solution/technology agnostic and may be used in the following ways:

  • to get a new initiative off the ground
  • to stack the business case for an existing proposal
  • to increase/target the location of specific schemes to the areas of the network under constraint.

To find out more about Social Constraint Management Zones (SCMZ), please join our webinar.