by Andrew Roper
DSO Director, SSEN Distribution
As we pack up the boxes and bunting from this year’s DSO Autumn Series, I’d like to take a moment to look back over the past fortnight, and share with you some of the highlights from what’s been another highly successful and hugely enjoyable couple of weeks.
Although this is only our second year, the Series already has the feel of something worthwhile and well-established, that encourages debate and discussion, yielding constructive feedback and innovative ideas.
Our DSO functions are focused on helping deliver sustainable economic growth through decarbonisation. A smart, fair energy system - that’s delivered ahead of need - is critical to achieving this wider goal. But it’s an enormous, complex task, so we need broad input from all of you to make this happen in the most effective way.
I’m a firm believer that bigger is not always better, and so rather than focusing on volume for its own sake, we’ve placed great emphasis on value being at the heart of every session - ensuring there’s time for meaningful conversations to develop, and for answers to emerge.
So, in this spirit, we hosted in-person breakfast sessions, webinars, video premieres, and a Control Room visit. And the subjects covered took in everything from Access Products and Flexibility Markets to Data and Digitalisation.
These events sired invaluable discussions - and it’s this quality of engagement with our customers and stakeholders that’s made this series such a success.
Driven by your feedback.
This year’s Autumn Series is a great example of how your comments and suggestions help us shape the way we deliver for all our customers.
The feedback we’ve received over the past fortnight will be processed and carefully analysed, to ensure we get the most out of these valuable interactions. While this work goes on, here are some early findings which really struck me. One was the genuine depth of interest in how we can look to make greater use of Flexibility and Access Products, together with our Local Energy Markets Alliance (LEMA) partnership to accelerate housing developments.
And another was the clear appetite for extending Active Network Management (ANM) support hours, to ensure that our Distributed Energy Resources (DER) community can access help, outside of traditional office hours.
These initial sentiments have certainly given us compelling things to consider; as the analysis of your feedback continues, further ideas will undoubtedly join them.
Looking ahead.
With winter almost here, we’ve already started to look at dates and brainstorm ideas for the forthcoming Spring Series.
In the meantime, we’re always open to your suggestions and feedback. Your insights have a direct impact on how we’ll shape our DSO strategy and deliver tangible improvements, so we’d love to hear from you if there’s anything you’d like us to cover over the course of our Spring Series 2026.