Regional Energy Strategic Plans - or RESPs - are a significant new development for the planning of a net zero energy system. Their purpose is to understand how the UK's energy transition is likely to play out at a regional scale - and to ensure that our energy infrastructure and networks are prepared for the scale and pace of change.

With a request for information on strategic investment being sent out to Local Authorities in June and July 2025, Regen's Fraser Stewart hosts this run through of RESPs, with a focus on interim t-RESPs (transitional RESPs), and what is will be needed from local authorities with some tips of how to respond.

Contributors to this episode:

Fraser Stewart (host), Regen's Just Transition and Communities Lead, hosts this introduction to RESPS (as well as more interim tRESPs, or transitional RESPs). Fraser is joined by:

Tom Worthington, Regional Energy Strategic Manager at NESO

Kate Ashworth from Energy Capital, part of the West Midlands Combined Authority

Philip Glanville, UK100 Director of Advocacy and Engagement

Jonty Haynes, Principal Analyst at Regen

This episode was recorded as part of the Net-Zero Living programme, funded by Innovate UK

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More information: Regen's policy insights paper, produced for the Net Zero Living programme, offers advice and guidance on how to prepare institutionally for changes that may come about as a result of the RESP.

00:00.000

Fraser Stewart - Regen:

Hello, and welcome to this special episode of the Regen podcast, which is being recorded as part of the Net Zero Living programme funded by Innovate UK. I'm your host, Fraser Stewart, the Just Transition and Communities Lead at Regen. Some of you may recognise these dulcet tones from the Local Zero Podcast.

This episode is focused on  Regional Energy Strategic Plans, or RESPs for short. For those who don't know, RESPs are a new and significant development for the planning of a net zero energy system. The purpose of RESPs is to understand how the energy transition is likely to play out at a regional scale in the UK, based on extensive modelling and engagement with key stakeholders, including but not limited to local authorities and energy networks. From this process, we can better understand if different parts of the UK are on track for net zero, support alignment, and collaboration between local and regional stakeholders on key priorities and across different energy vectors and enable far bigger regional energy, social, and economic ambitions in the process.

The National Energy System operator NESO will be responsible for delivering these regional plans with the transitional process kicking off this summer. In this episode, we'll discuss what all of this actually means. All these different acronyms, why it's happening and what local authorities can do to engage with the process both this summer and beyond.

To unpack these issues, we've got some very distinguished guests representing key organisations in this space, including the National Energy System Operator, UK 100, Energy Capital at West Midlands Combined Authority, and one of our own from Regen as well. But with all that said, we've got a lot to get through, so let's get into it.

1:44.000

Kate Ashworth, West Midlands Comb. Auth.:

I am Kate Ashworth. I'm head of Energy Infrastructure at Energy Capital. We're part of the West Midlands Combined Authority.

1:49.000

Tom Worthington, N England RESP manager:

My name's Tom Worthington. I'm the Regional Energy Strategic Planning or RESP manager for the two north of England regions across the Northwest and the Northeast, Yorkshire and Humber

1:59.000

Philip Glanville, UK100:

2.05.900

Jonty Haynes, Regen:

I'm Jonty Haynes. I'm a principal analyst at Regen and spent much of the last sort of 6, 7 years working with distribution networks on their future energy scenarios.

2:17.500

Fraser Stewart - Regen:

Hello everyone, great to have you with us today and thank you very much for giving us your time to chat about all things RESP.

Now, in the outset of this episode, we've teed up all the main themes, all the naughty acronyms that we're going chat through in this conversation. But Jonty coming to you first. I was wondering if you could give us the big overview here. What is the RESP overall and why is it significant?

2:39.800

Jonty Haynes, Regen: Yeah, great question.

So I guess as we move, as a country towards net zero planning, the energy system strategically is going to be really fundamental in achieving that and achieving that in the both efficient way possible. Part of that is going to be ensuring that local and regional energy needs are considered in a way that is really holistic and whole-system.

So we're accounting for different forms of energy supply and demand. Networked energy like electricity and gas and hydrogen obviously come into play a lot better, but also really place-based, so accounting for the fact that every region, local area is going to have different factors, different drivers, and net zero and the transition to net zero is going to look very different across the country.

We're also going have to look long term. So for such a major shift in how energy is produced and used and, and interacted with, we can't be stuck in a sort of reactive planning cycle and have to go beyond that kind of near term horizon into something that's a bit more, a bit more clever and a bit more efficient really.

And this is what the Regional Energy Strategic Plan for the RESP will aim to deliver. Particularly in terms of strategic planning of energy distribution networks. So they're going to be delivered by the National Energy System operator on NESO and bring in those regional stakeholders such as the local authorities that we're going to be talking about in much more detail on this podcast around how the energy system needs to develop to meet local needs while also being in the context of that national picture.

4:09.000

Fraser Stewart - Regen:

So how does it build on what we do already? Because naturally we do some strategic planning with networks. They do this, a lot of this in-house as it stand. How does the, the RESP pull this together and build on this process?

4:19.400

Jonty Haynes, Regen: Yeah, so locally reflective network planning, like you say, it's not, it's not a completely new concept.

Here at Regen, we've worked with. A few of the electricity distribution network to produce, uh, distribution future energy scenarios - or DFES - for about a decade. Every DNO does this now. The gas networks also produce similar kind of future outlooks, and over that time there's been this sort of increasing ramp up of engagement with local actors. Not only local government, but also like developers in the region. Industrial clusters are increasingly important. They've got the really, sort of the tricky decarbonisation questions. Even going down to sort of housing providers and how they're looking to decarbonise their stock or their, their housing.

And on the other side of the coin, increasingly, there's more and more local authorities who are really getting into the details of energy or climate strategy. So I'm sure everyone's aware of local area energy plans. There are other ways that local authorities can sort of look to the future and strategically plan their energy side.

And these have been reflected by the energy networks through things such as DFES in a variety of ways, which in a way has been good. It's enabled a load of really good innovation. I think if anyone's looked at some of the work that DNOs are doing around like open data portals for example, it's been really impressive how over the last few years that's massively ramped up and the sort of the data visibility is really getting stronger and stronger and stronger.

But it can also be quite sort of diverse and confusing and different depending on where you are in the country. And I'm guessing there straddle. Multiple electricity or gas networks, they'll be really aware of how that can actually be sometimes quite a convoluted picture, even if they're all aiming for the same goal.

05:58.500

Fraser Stewart - Regen:

Great. Thanks Jonty. So Tom, thinking about the, the tangible implementation of the risk, we're about to enter into a transitional RESP period or a tRESP period. What is the transitional RESP, and what are the aims of this process?

6:12.500

Tom Worthington, N England RESP manager: Of course. So the transitional RESP serves as a means to develop the full or enduring RESP within a compressed timescale.

So tRESP is looking to compress RESP and deliver a lot of that value within a short time scale for ED3. Now what is going to be within tRESP, and there's four key areas to draw out? The first of which is regional context, which is setting the scene of the energy landscape within a particular RESP area or nation.

So this could be everything from the supply and demand mix through to socioeconomic factors such as fuel poverty or EPC ratings. There will be pathways for each RESP area. There will also be consistent planning assumptions that set out certain guidelines for how the different, uh, DNOs will do some of their planning for ED3, such as the rollout of low carbon technologies or the uptake of flexibility services, for example.

And then finally we have strategic investment need that is looking to drive investment into the network over and above what is the business as usual, with the understanding that is there, there is an increased electrification happening across the economy.

07:48.800

Fraser Stewart - Regen:

Big ambitions for the, the overall of the fuller RESP Tom. So Kate, you're working at West Midlands with Energy Capital, representing a lot of different local authorities and also, you know spurring investment within the region. What work is underway at West Midlands to help local authorities and Energy Capital prepare for the transitional RESP?

08:08.000

Kate Ashworth, West Midlands Comb. Auth.: We are in a fortunate position in that we have Energy Capital, which is the energy team of the WMCA, but it's also a wider regional partnership, exactly for the reason that we need to capture the understanding, the kind of regional ambitions and making sure we're being coherent about where we are advocating for future energy infrastructure, to ensure that the underlying energy infrastructure doesn't inhibit or, or kind of become a blocker for our decarbonisation plans or our clean inclusive growth plans as a region either. There's an awful lot of actors that need to come together to ensure that that data is in a place where we can come up with that coherent plan. So, Energy Capital have been in that space for a long time, and increasingly as RESP has come together and as we are working in partnership with making sure we're providing conduit and assistance as well. I’m trying to support our LAs in understanding the, the “why should they engage”, you know, “what's at stake here?” Why is it important to be in that conversation and not only be in that conversation, but also understand the kind of implications of the, of the really large kind of building blocks that are moving at the moment.

09:14.000

Fraser Stewart - Regen: Can I follow up on that point? Thewhy should they engage? Because we've set out the network need very clearly. I think Tom set out some of the “making sure that regional ambitions are, are reflected here”. But what, what is your pitch? You go to a local authority and. You're trying to sort of help with this process, why should they engage?

09:30.000

Kate Ashworth, West Midlands Comb. Auth.:

Yeah. Well, it, it's a good question because actually in some cases it's quite difficult for an LA to see themselves in that space. Energy is not a statutory responsibility, and when you know you have budget pressures that mean that your, you know, the day-to-day activities don't revolve in this kind of strategic planning space, it's quite hard to see how you can engage or kind of have any kind of impact in that space.

But what we're telling our local authority partners is we need to have a role in that space because up until this point, the energy system has been planned from a, a single vector point of view. So electricity has been planned in one sphere, gas in another, and that's not even accounting for the much wider spheres - that is the kind of spatial planning sphere or transport planning or any of the other things that are happening kind of within place. That's been OK up to this point because we haven't had a net zero transition in a kind of meaningful sense, but we are in this place of radical change where actually in order to kind of take the benefits of that transition and, and ensure that's a just transition to net zero, we're going to have to make sure that those silos come together and we're going to need partners in place that can help us kind of understand what those cross-vector implications look like.

So unless you are in that space, there is a chance that you get done to, as opposed to kind of being proactive and making sure that we're advocating for what the place needs as opposed to what the energy system needs.

10:53.800

Fraser Stewart - Regen: So there's a a point here around the participational point here around maybe a little bit around accountability, democratic input, and the just transition certainly. Phil, I wonder if I can, if I can come to you on this as well, because you naturally convene, represent, work with many local authorities. What is happening within UK100 to support local authorities to get into this process and what, what needs to happen going forward?

11:14.750

Philip Glanville, UK100:

Well, thanks Fraser, and just really building on the question and where sort of Kate sort of stepped off.

So for UK100 we're 117 local authorities across the country from combined authorities all the way through to district councils. So some with the resources that Kate's talked about, others where you may have, you know, one single energy officer or half a post trying to advise on what the local authorities should do, engage with this process, draw up the plans, liase with colleagues internally.

So there is a vast range of people within local government that have different levels of expertise and capacities to respond. And we work with political leaders, so leaders of councils, cabinet members, senior officers and frontline staff. And I suppose what we try and do is produce materials and information that's suitable for those different levels and those different levels of engagement. You know, explaining to a council leader why in a very busy programme strategy for the council, they're dealing with adult social care one minute, SEND transport the next. They should be thinking about energy and investing the time as a political leader in that, but also making sure that they resource their teams in the right way to be able to respond. So there's been an element of engaging with the sector, creating practical toolkits, policy briefings, and sharing that information along with our network. And I suppose in the act of doing that, we've picked up quite a lot of interest in energy. I think it is something where despite the lack of statutory duty, as Kate said, that more and more councils are investing time in. One of the ways they do that is building Local Area Energy Plans, LEAPs, and about 40, just under 50%, 48% of councils across the country have a LEAP or a Local Area Energy Plan. All of them have them in Wales because that was a decision taken by the Welsh government.

So when we're coming. to, uh, the work that NESA doing. I think you're going to see it a lot easier to build in Wales where you've got devolved government and those local plans that councils have drawn up. I think it's a little bit more patchy and challenging across England and where you've got combined authorities convening, that's one level, but as others have said, the footprints are different, the footprints don't all align. And what I think NESA has done a really good job of is doing quite a lot of outreach, engaging with local government, starting to set out what they expect. But I think it's still a, a tricky place when you're dealing with quite an alphabet soup within an energy policy, but also all those different responsibilities of local government, and I feel that sort of Regen UK 100 and others are still sort of filling in the gaps there and helping our, our members make sense of it all.

13:46.000

Fraser Stewart - Regen:

Really insightful points and thinking about the, uh, engagement of local authorities with energy planning more generally. Kate touched on it as well. As you've been delivering network planning for some time with a couple of the, the DNOs, how do you find that process of engaging with, with local authorities on these issues? And are there any lessons from that process that can be learned for, for the RESP, the transitional or enduring going forward?

14:08.500

Jonty Haynes, Regen:

Philip and Kate both touched on it. It's been really clear how much interest and buzz in energy and energy planning has sort of developed over the last 3, 4, 5 years.

In terms of lessons learned from the work we've done with the DNOs and the sort of the local authority engagement, I think what Philip said about the variety of resource and capabilities and just sheer sort of time, especially while it's not a statutory requirement, there's an element of just being really versatile to what can be provided.

I think it would be wrong to reduce the ask so much that it's sort of the bare minimum, but also we need to make sure that it's not just the well-resourced or well-funded local authorities or combined authorities who can produce really deep Local Area Energy Plans or, you know, put a lot of time and resource towards this to get the benefits of the RESP.

That’s not fully an answer, but I think the more, the more sort of, uh, flexible the inputs can be - and I think Tom, the, the tRESP request, I was really buoyed to see that it was, had a lot of open form stuff. I know that makes the response quite challenging, but it also means that you are able to capture things that don't – you know, you’re not sanitising it to a specific format or a specific bucket that would leave some local authorities behind and some more well resourced ones able to answer, so I think, I think we're, we're already on right track to that variability.

15:36.000

Fraser Stewart - Regen:

Yeah. I think we were heartened to see as well that in the whole, the RESP documentation, this principle around being fair was a, a core component of that as well, both in the, in the trade offs with different vectors, with different industries, etc.

It seems like there's positive movement in the right direction. Tom, I wonder if I can come back to you on, on Jonty's point there, around the format of the request for information, the requests that are out with local authorities just now, was this part of the consideration, make it as easy as possible to, to submit that information, to submit that data?

16:04.000

Tom Worthington, N England RESP manager:

And so, ourselves, but also therefore our stakeholders are having to move really at pace with us, and so, you know, we really recognise and appreciate everyone working with us through this transitional RESP and absolutely both within the Strategic Investment Need Request For Information or RFI that has been going out, but wider NESO activities as well, understanding how best to work with our stakeholders has been a core principle to a lot of that. So we're currently doing a lot of work with different stakeholders as well to design what will be our local actor support, which will allow us as NESO to design different services, to support people, to engage in those RESP processes.

As, as you kind of rightly mentioned, Jonty, not everyone's coming at this from the same position, so we want to drive greater equity, uh, and opportunity to, to engage in RESP. And so, if you'll allow me, Fraser, now potentially a good time to step into how we've, how we've designed and what we're looking to do within the strategic investment need RFI. And so given that it's one of the four key areas, what this is looking to do is really build on the understanding that we're at a point in time where huge parts of the economy are electrifying at great pace, and to understand exactly where and when can be really quite difficult. And of course, for this next business plan, certain projects, the things that we know are going to happen will still drive network investment, but we also recognise that there's going to be whole swathes of electrification happening, that we don't quite know where and when.

And so we need still to do something to ensure that it's not a blocker, that the network is not standing in the way of the development, the growth that our different parts of GB are looking to achieve and realise. So strategic investment need is looking to understand what are the pipeline of key regional priorities and activities so that we can start to map those across GB and understand where the hotspots are going to occur, with the understanding that making recommendations around these particular areas is likely to be a very good investment into the network because there is that increased level of activity within those particular pockets.

We can say if we build appropriate network in these areas through one means or another, it will be utilised and better support the changes that are happening across our economy.

18:44.500

Fraser Stewart - Regen:

So with that process, Tom, thinking about strategic investment need, what types of information are you seeking?

And the reason, the reason I ask this is that some local authorities might have very early seeds of plans for things that they would like to do going forward. Some might be very well established, have investment cases lined up and ready to go. What type of information might qualify for something to then make it into, to that plan on the, the, the other end?

19:08.000

Tom Worthington, N England RESP manager:

We have a really comprehensive. RFI, that, that's sort of working its way through as our teams are able to brief different stakeholders. It's sort of structured in into three almost. So the first is a bit of pre-screening to understand are some kind of very key questions, pieces of criteria met so that we don't waste anyone's time in filling out a comprehensive RFI form.

So those are things such as ‘has your local, uh, electricity distribution network operator or DNO or on the gas side already been engaged in this particular opportunity, because we're also working very closely with them as they've been doing extensive stakeholder engagement for many, many years at this point, and so we want to build on that engagement that's been done by working very closely with them to understand the strategic investment need that they're seeing in their pipeline. So. If stakeholders are already working very, very closely with their, with their DNO or GDN, then they may not need to necessarily go through this process as, as it will already be captured.

That's an example of one of those pieces of pre-screening. We then move into a sort of a context setting, a general information section, which captures really the, the who, what, when, where, and why, which allows us to understand what is this particular energy need, which could be a, a project, a programme, an initiative, a cluster, you know, think as broadly as you can. That will set the scene for us and we then move into really the bulk of it, which has questions relating to a heading of strategic value, and another series of questions relating to uncertainty. And so within the Ofgem decision document that sets out the mandate for RESP. Within there is a matrix that describes strategic value versus uncertainty as the sort of core of assessing strategic investment needs.

So all of our RFI is ultimately structured to allow us to answer those questions and assess those questions qualitatively as to what is the strategic value being delivered by this particular energy need, and what is the level of uncertainty. We want to understand projects that are sort of almost in a bit of a Goldilocks space, so projects that are a complete dead cert, they are picked up within other elements of the tRESP, likely within the pathways, but equally complete pipe dreams are not necessarily appropriate if they are really, really uncertain. So we want to understand projects that are somewhere in the middle.

As you say, Fraser, some projects are nascent, some are really, really mature, and so it's quite unique and I, I think a really exciting step change to be exploring projects that are operating really in that middle space, with regards to uncertainty, to look at how that pipeline should direct investment into the distribution networks to better enable them going forwards.

21:51.000

Fraser Stewart - Regen:

That's great. That's great. A very comprehensive insight into what's being sought. I wonder if I can pull back - I'll come to Kate and then Phil would be interested to get your thoughts on this as well. Uh, Jonty pulled out early in the conversation that it's important that local authorities aren't excluded from this process based on a lack of capacity, capability to engage, etc.

What work are you doing either in Kate's case with the combined authority or Phil with UK100 to support local authorities into that process just now? Or what would you like to see happen to ensure a, a fairer balance of, of input and engagement?

22:23.000

Kate Ashworth, West Midlands Comb. Auth.:

There's a couple of levels ther, I would say Fraser in terms of how we're looking to support with our LA partners.

So we are in a position that we're actually part of a SIF-funded innovation project. Project Pride, which stands for Planning Renewable Regional Energy in a Digital Environment. So that really gives us a, a fantastic platform to be able to collect a lot of this data in advance. We, we sort of saw this coming down the road, so, we knew that we would need to be in a position where we would collate this information in a way that essentially allowed local authorities to not only increase that kind of visibility of the kind of interconnected systems together, but also allowed a mechanism where once you put data into a system, it allows you a means to be able to see what the impact of that data has had. So if I, if I refer back to what Jonty was saying earlier about the kind of DFES process and the lessons learned through there, which I think there's been a huge kind of improvement in, you know, in the time that we've been feeding information into that programme, particularly driven by the kind of digitalization of that process. What we really discovered through that is the best way to bring people along that journey with us is to do something what National Grid are now piloting, which is “You Said, We Did”, and that is essentially. What the impact that data has that you fed into that system.

23:44.000

Fraser Stewart - Regen:

Yep. I'm, I'm not at all biased but PRIDE is a, a really exciting and interesting project and you should definitely check it out. Phil, I wonder, can I ask you the, the same question, sort of how are you supporting local authorities to gear up at the tRESP stage just now for the, the request for information.

23:58.000

Philip Glanville, UK100:

So a bit like Kate said, I don't think we just started this work on energy and supporting our, our members and wider local government to, to work around this space. So just sort of starting there, we're on our second energy toolkit around the kind of local energy, energy planning level. But they also speak to the what was coming RESP.

You know, there are some really established work happening around energy planning, around the sort of trailblazer combined authorities, so Greater Manchester, West Midlands Combined Authority, but I’d also put the sort of GLA and London councils in that work, where they've got a clear plan of across London, they've done some subregional work, and now they're supporting individual local authorities and clusters of those to engage.

But there's vast parts of England that don't yet have a settled evolution structure. So part of our work was talking about the sort of footprints that the RESP were taking place on, comparing notes with organisations like the LGA and Regen itself to make sure that those areas that didn't have that, that their voices were being heard.

And I think that that sense of equity, that all parts of the country are getting, that their voices heard are incredibly important to us, uh, and that it isn't just sort of urban airs and cities that have the resource,. Filling in the gaps - we're really keen to promote the Onward Forum work, uh, and this tRESP process, refreshing the kind of knowledge and also recognising that there's a lot of change happening in local government in terms of footprint of local government itself.

So local government reorganisation is taking place. People may have engaged on their original footprints, but might become part of larger local authorities. You don't want that political officer and data expertise to kind be lost in that process. And the final bit is knowledge sharing. So one of the most effective pieces of work, I think, is peer-to-peer learning.

25:40.800

Fraser Stewart - Regen:

Tom, I wonder if I can nudge you on, on this one on the back of Phil's point there particularly, it's come up a few times about the different local authorities and it's been mentioned as well that NESO seem to be engaging widely, very openly.

Is there a process, is there a strategy for trying to get out to more local authorities, both in the transitional phase, but also looking ahead to the enduring RESP?

26:01.500

Tom Worthington, N England RESP manager:

Sure, just to come in on the first point there. You know, we, we've done a lot of work to, to try and design this process as best we can for that greater, greater ambition of equity, of opportunity to engage here.

And so we've got a comprehensive verified pack with slides, with covering letters, with forms, with instructions. And we've underscored throughout our approach here that the team is here to support people engaging in this process. It's really not a hand over the RFI and, and we'll sit back and wait for a response, absolutely not. You know, the team want to, to explore the nuance to work through this. It is a brand new piece that we're working through, and so there is a need to have that conversation, uh, and the team are well positioned to, to do it on that basis.

26:45.500

Fraser Stewart - Regen:

At the transitional phase, is there a thought to how you get these sort of local authorities that maybe don't have the same resource capacity voice in the space just now how you get responses from them at the transitional phase, but then looking ahead to the enduring phase.

26:59.000

Tom Worthington, N England RESP manager:

Our outreach really is growing. The RESP team is new. We are maturing teams and so we're expanding our, our sort of stakeholder networks to an extent.

But equally we are as, as I mentioned earlier, working very closely with a number of stakeholders who are very well established in the regions and have really well connected groups such, you know, forums such as this, for example. But also to call out the other obvious connections such as through the networks on, on the electricity and gas side through the net zero hubs, through other cross regional groups, through our authorities who equally are very good at connecting us in.

So, ultimately working with our stakeholders and being candid with the fact that we are building this out, particularly through this transitional phase, and we welcome the support, we welcome the feedback that anyone else can provide in this process as well as we refine that and take it forward into the enduring RESP.

27:52.000

Kate Ashworth, West Midlands Comb. Auth.:

We are engaging with our local authority partners, helping a bit of handholding, kind of signposting a lot to the resources that you just mentioned. Some of the feedback that we're getting out, because we're saying, you know, it has to be this shorter time scale because we have to be able to influence ED3. The sharp nature of the deadlines is always a deadline.

What we're hearing back is, is this a one, a one shot to have these loads accounted for as part of energy system planning? Is this, what we put in in the next six weeks, is this going to define our underlying energy infrastructure for the next six to eight years as it runs through that kind of business planning process?

Or will there be an opportunity given that we've got enduring RESP coming up, will there be a chance to essentially refine that or add further loads in? You know, you talked about projects that are not quite developed yet, a lot of this is in kind of a pipeline process. Is there a chance of kind of a reopener process or something along those lines that essentially helps direct investment at a later date? Or should we just be very worried and try and get everything in now?

28:55.500

Tom Worthington, N England RESP manager:

I don’t know that I'd want to instill worry, but as you say, you know, there's a lot of work going on right now to plan for infrastructure in a number of years to come, which can often feel a bit bizarre to be planning this far in advance, but it, it takes many, many years to, to drive multi-billion pound investments.

And so we have a current deadline for the RFI that we've launched, which is the 25th of July for wider stakeholders. We have been working on a slightly accelerated timeline for the DNOs and the GDNs. We do recognise that the world doesn't stop turning on the 26th of July. And so there, there absolutely will be a process for submitting further responses beyond that, which we will be setting out in due course.

So there will be this ongoing iterative process to inform network investment. Specifically how the networks will be required to use the outputs from NESO on strategic investment need is, is still to be set out. So to your point, Kate, of whether there may be a reopener later on that could use a potential future RESP output, that is still to be confirmed, but there will certainly be opportunity to input again on a, on an iterative cycle into the Strategic Investment Need work that NESO is doing.

30:58.500

Kate Ashworth, West Midlands Comb. Auth.:

Thank you.

31:00.000

Jonty Haynes, Regen:

So I'm currently doing a project with a few county areas in the Southwest. We're taking four county areas together through the first stage of one to three of a local area energy plan. So the stakeholder engagement with sort of the baselining side with a view to helping make that sort of decision of, and then what next? We are doing that now in the context of the tRESP and the enduring RESP coming up soon, and one of the things that we've been talking about, considering, is that full local area energy plan methodology that involved the creation of pathways, is that still the right thing for local authorities to be doing given that we'll be having tRESP and enduring RESP pathways for their region, and whether local area energy planning sort of changes a bit in this sort of new environment, and I guess. I imagine all three of you would have some kind of, sort of view on that. Thankfully we've got a few more months to answer that question on the project, but it's one that I think is really gets into the nitty gritty of like, where does this planning lie?

Especially when we go back to what we said earlier about resource and capacity, those future-looking pathways can be the very. Intensive bit of that local area energy planning. So I'm sure there'd be quite a few local authorities who would be quite happy to adopt, to maybe review and challenge existing pathways rather than develop another set that maybe confuses the picture more than clarifies it.

32:30.000

Tom Worthington, N England RESP manager:

So it's a question that I suppose if I distill it down, Jonty, what you ask is what you know, what's that ongoing relationship of LEAPs, RESPs and the other alphabet soups that we've talked about thus far. And it's a question we get a lot, and rightly so, because so much resource goes into developing a LEAP, and it's easy to see how there could be confusion and overlap between that and particularly RESP, you know, so there is inherently a concern there.

Now, RESP is not here to replace LEAPs. They serve different purposes as part of this suite of strategic energy planning acronyms that we've walked through in this podcast. Quite simply in a nutshell, if we break them down, we have LEAPs kind of at the most granular level, really into the detail, very, very focused around preparing a, a sort of mature pipeline of projects through those various stages that you've talked about. And then sitting above that, we have Regional Energy Strategic Planning. That is at a sort of broader geography that sort of ensures we have a complete picture GB wide.

We talked about that patchwork that exists currently of LEAPs at the moment. So through RESP we will have a complete, relatively bottom up stakeholder-led development of energy plans. And then we have a national view with the strategic spatial energy plan or the SSEP that is a, a more top down exercise, and so collectively, we have a really thorough investigation of what energy planning should look like across GB when you pull them all together, each serving very distinct purposes and functions.

34:10.000

Kate Ashworth, West Midlands Comb. Auth.:

So in terms of whether that process sits with RESP in terms of that data feeding into pathways, that works if you can very clearly see where that data, how that data has influenced those pathways. Because ultimately, when you are making these local decisions about, you know, where to have your transport, your new electric bus depots, for example, or a new housing development or whatever else.

What you will need to understand are the implications of those decisions. So being a kind of informed client in those space and making sure you are in a position to challenge the pathways as defined by RESP because you have that data inherent somehow, in a way that you can understand it, is fine.

If we are given a set of pathways and you can't follow the thread through as to kind of what that local implication looks like, we are no better off than when we were, you know, still kind of being done to as, as a system.

So that's the real challenge and I see it. I have much sympathy for, for the RESP team. This is hugely complicated, but we're going to have to work out how we follow that thread through so that we all feel fully informed, able to challenge, able to kind of actively participate in that space.

35:23.800

Tom Worthington, N England RESP manager:

Absolutely, Kate. And if I can come in on that, so firstly, draw to attention to the listeners the fact that in September time we will be publicly consulting on the first tRESPS, one for each of the 11 regions and nations so please do look out for that and let us know if you don't feel your input is being seen within the final outputs.

And the second one, in terms of keeping everyone up to speed with what's going on. In sort of late June, early July, we have the next round of tRESP forums as well. So they're coming up, which will be sort of a, an open-to-all invitation to come along, see where we're up to within the programme, see what progress has been made since the first round of forums, and then obviously look forward to, to where we're going next, but also gather some feedback, and showcase what we've been doing as well.

36:11.000

Philip Glanville, UK100:

I think it's 30 pages or 30 questions that are being put out at the moment. Not all of them are going to be relevant. They shouldn't be an obstacle to some engagement and just getting involved.

37:22.500

Fraser Stewart - Regen:

So Tom, with all that being said, we've had the, the grand tour of what's expected of, of local authorities, what the RESP means, what the transitional phase is. What are the timelines for the current transitional process, and what are the the next steps?

Tom Worthington, N England RESP manager: Yes, so some of the key milestones to be aware of the, the first of which happening in sort of end of June, early July, will be our next set of RESP forums. These are advertised on our website, so please do go and have a look. These will be a great opportunity to get an update on what we've been doing looking forward as well as gather more input for the development of the tRESP. The next key milestone will be closing out our Strategic Investment Need request for information, and that closes on the 25th of July, noting our previous conversation that there will be sort of a, an opportunity for submission beyond that.

38:28.500

Fraser Stewart - Regen:

Great. We could keep this conversation going for a very, very long time, but I'd just like to close out and say thank you very much for everyone, for coming along and sharing your insights.

For anyone listening, particularly local authorities, get your RFI responses in. ASAP. Get involved with the process. But thank you all very much.