Reducing costs and increasing grid resilience by putting communities in control of local energy

The Challenge

The UK’s electricity grid wasn’t designed for the energy transition. As EVs, heat pumps, batteries and rooftop solar become widespread, local networks are coming under increasing pressure from higher demand, changing usage patterns, and two-way power flows – and upgrading ageing infrastructure to cope is prohibitively expensive. Ofgem wanted to explore a different approach: could communities play an active role in generating, sharing and managing energy locally, reducing pressure on the national grid while keeping costs down for households, businesses and network operators?

What we did

Electric Places lead a consortium of specialist partners delivering the UK’s first trial of a Community Distribution System Operator (CDSO) model, in partnership with Northern Powergrid. Our role spans project coordination, development of the commercial model, and community engagement – as well as capturing the technical and commercial learnings needed to make the model scalable and replicable.

We identified communities in Barnsley, Knaresborough and Whitley Bay as relevant trial sites. The project is testing whether smarter coordination of local solar, battery storage and flexible demand can unlock existing network capacity. It also explores the importance of active community participation in creating fairer outcomes in this energy transition.

Progress & intended outcomes

The CONDOR trial is running from 2024 tthrough to the end of 2026. It will make recommendations for a commercially viable, community-led model for local energy management that network operators and communities across the UK can replicate. Beyond improving local grid resilience and reducing the need for expensive infrastructure upgrades, the programme will generate practical evidence on the governance models and engagement approaches needed to make community energy systems repeatable and successful at scale.