Our RIIO-ED2 Business Plan

We launched our RIIO-ED2 Business Plan in December 2021, detailing the £3.3 billion worth of spending that’s needed to ready the UK for an electric future.

We engaged over 19,000 customers and stakeholders on a vast range of topics ranging from engineering to consumer vulnerability. In short, everything we’ve done is designed to meet the needs of our communities, now and in the future.

Running from 2023 to 2028, the plan sets out our vision for a network that can meet the challenge of Net Zero across more than 100,000km of network and 30,000 substations and will benefit more than 3.5m homes and businesses across Scotland, England, and Wales.

You can read a copy of our plan and find our supporting documentation and additional materials below.

Find out more about the ED2 Customer Engagement Group

Downloads and more information

Annual Vulnerability Report 23-24

Going above and beyond for our vulnerable customers is a core part of our role as an essential service provider with deep roots across the communities we serve.

Enabling the path to Net Zero: Our RIIO-ED2 Business Plan

A 200 page synopsis of our plan, designed for both industry and public consumption. This glossy 200 page document gives you all of the key messaging from our plan.

Business Plan Executive Summary

This document provides an overview of the most important points of our plan – including an overview our strategy, ambitions and projected financials for the RIIO-ED2 period.

Our RIIO-ED2 Commitments

We're making 100 commitments in our business plan to deliver outcomes that meet their needs. This document contains the full list of our 100 proposed RIIO-ED2 Business Plan commitments.

Board Assurance Statement

This document sets out the Board Assurance Statement for the plan and details why we are confident that the content and associated costs have been tested for accuracy, ambition and efficiency.

Our strategy and methodology for WSC schemes

In line with Ofgem’s RIIO-ED2 Worst Served Customer (WSC) Governance Document, SPEN’s strategy and methodology for identifying WSC schemes to reduce their interruptions, including how they are assessed and costed is set out within the linked EJP. SPEN plan to revise and re-issue this methodology as required, and will publish the details of the WSC schemes being undertaken annually .

RIIO-ED2 Business Plan – Annex 4A.7 Climate Resilience Strategy

Our Climate Resilience Strategy (CRS) has been produced as part of our RIIO-ED2 Business Plan Submission to Ofgem and outlines how we will maintain a safe and resilient network in response to the changing climate. Our CRS has been developed using the climate adaption pathways approach.

RIIO-ED2 Business Plan – Annex 4B.1 Consumer Vulnerability

We have worked relentlessly throughout RIIO-ED1 to maximise the value we deliver to customers in vulnerable situations at the most efficient cost. We’ve supporting them with a range of services they told us were important to them both energy and non-energy related and delivered these through a network of partnerships and informed by data and trends.

RIIO-ED2 Business Plan – Annex 4B.3 Community Energy Strategy

strong and resilient community energy sector is essential to achieving a just transition and meeting the devolved and UK Government’s Net Zero targets. In its 6th Carbon Budget1, the Committee on Climate Change state that people will need to be more actively involved and supported to make low carbon choices on travel, heating, consumption, food, and be better involved in decision-making if they are to help facilitate the transition to net zero.

RIIO-ED2 Business Plan – Annex 4C.3: Environmental Action Plan

A key aim of the RIIO-2 Framework is that network companies support the transition to a smarter, more flexible, sustainable low carbon energy system, whilst supporting the Just Transition, in addition to taking appropriate steps to mitigate their own environmental impact.

RIIO-ED2 Business Plan – Annex 4C.4: Net Zero Workforce Strategy

As we accelerate towards Net Zero, our workforce will need to evolve to meet changing workload, technology, sustainability and portfolio requirements. Our existing workforce will need to become more agile and develop new skills and our workforce programmes will need to evolve to meet those new challenges. We will need to maintain our long-term pipeline to address an industry facing skill shortages and continuing high levels of retirement.

A message from our CEO (December 2021)

Frank_Mitchell

This plan is the most important we have ever produced, developed at a pivotal time. The challenge to achieve legislated Net Zero targets will impact every part of society, with electricity at the heart of the solution.

We forecast that up to 1.8m electric vehicles, 1.1m heat pumps, and up to triple the amount of distributed generation, will be connected to our networks by the end of this decade. This is a radical change.

We propose to spend over £3.3bn, a 28% increase on what we do today, in enabling the path to Net Zero. This has been built upon our largest ever engagement programme, with over 19,000 customers and stakeholders shaping our 100 plan commitments. This plan reflects the voices of the communities we serve, and their priorities form the foundation of our RIIO-ED2 strategy.

Those voices have been clear: we must be bold as we reimagine the role of our network, the services we provide, and the capabilities of our business. We must match the ambition of our customers alongside the devolved governments and major cities that we serve, whose elected representatives have set out their visions to achieve Net Zero and the targets newly agreed at COP26.

In delivering this plan, we can tangibly and meaningfully contribute to a just transition to Net Zero. This is both about addressing the societal impacts from climate action and doing the right thing by our communities by delivering positive social change through the low carbon transition. We will generate real economic growth by recruiting for over 1,100 jobs during RIIO-ED2, targeting this from the communities that we serve, with more again in our supply chain. This is something that resonates strongly with me, given that the areas we serve face extremes of rural and urban poverty. We must ensure all communities have opportunity in the transition to Net Zero.

In over 30 years of my career in this industry, I have witnessed an enormous amount of change across the full value chain of the electricity sector. The decades since privatisation have delivered huge improvements in service to our customers, and I’m proud to lead a business that continues to push the boundaries. But I see greater change, and greater opportunity, ahead.

By starting this journey now with you, our customers, and our stakeholders, we can build a better future, quicker.

Thank you,

Frank Mitchell,

Chief Executive Officer