Dear Stakeholder

As we develop our RIIO-T2 business plan, the energy landscape around us is continuing to change.  In the last year we have seen an additional 139 MW of renewable generation connect to our transmission network and a 58% increase in the number of electric vehicles registered in our area.  To ensure our T2 business plan is keeping pace with this change, we have updated our Future Energy Scenarios we use for Central and Southern Scotland to shape and test our RIIO-T2 investment plans:

Central & Southern Scotland Future Energy Scenarios, RIIO-T2, 2019 Update

This review of the possible future energy scenarios uses the most up to date national projections for generation and demands for electricity from the National Grid ESO 2019 Future Energy Scenarios.  Our stakeholders also told us that they want us to be consistent with National Grid ESO’s scenarios because they know it ensures consistency with the approach used more widely across the energy sector.

At such a dynamic time in our energy system’s development, our RIIO-T2 plans are always designed with the flexibility to adapt to the different scenarios. Therefore, despite updating the scenarios we use in our modelling, our proposed T2 load-related expenditure hasn’t changed.  This gives us further confidence in  how robust our overall approach has been for creating a plan that will set the pathway for Scotland moving to Net Zero by 2045.

This latest update to our Central & Southern Scotland Future Energy Scenarios document not only includes the energy-system changes we need to plan for, but also how these link through to our RIIO-T2 investment decisions.  It also includes analysis on the demand and generation trends we have seen over the last few years and notably the rapid level of change we have already seen around us.

We would welcome any feedback on this document that you may have. Your views can be submitted to RIIO_T2@spenergynetworks.co.uk.  Our final RIIO-T2 business plan will be submitted to Ofgem on 9th  December 2019, and we hope you take the opportunity to help shape our investment decisions for 2021 to 2026.