Empowering Communities, Enabling Growth

Local electricity networks play a fundamental role in our day to day lives – keeping the lights on in our homes and powering businesses the length and breadth of the UK.

At SSEN, we’re proud to be custodians of the distribution networks in the north of Scotland and in central southern England. We know how vital it is to keep customers and communities connected, and we know we need to do even more in the years ahead.

That’s because we live in an increasingly electrified world. And that means we need to ensure our electricity networks are capable of meeting much higher levels of demand – creating greater resilience, supporting decarbonisation and unlocking economic growth.

Achieving that requires a step-change in how we invest in our distribution networks.

Why ED3 matters

ED3 is the upcoming price control for electricity distribution networks. It’ll run for five years from April 2028. It’s set by our regulator Ofgem and will establish the return we can earn in the period, measured against clear targets and value we deliver for consumers.

What we’re doing

We’re beginning to create our ED3 business plan — the roadmap for how we’ll invest in and develop the electricity network between 2028 and 2033. This matters for the communities we serve because it will influence how we build resilience, enable the energy transition, and deliver smarter networks in your area.

Starting the conversation

We don’t create our business plan alone. It’ll be shaped by thousands of stakeholders, like you. That’s why we’re starting a dialogue on the future of local electricity networks, ensuring your views are reflected in our plans.

Being held to account

As a regulated monopoly, we have wide ranging obligations: to our customers, to the environment, to the communities we work in. Being accountable for the commitments we make is at the core of our ED3 approach. Our Independent Stakeholder Group is already playing a critical role in shaping our plans for ED3. Over the coming months, it will continue to assess the strength and quality of our engagement with customers and stakeholders, holding us to account.

You can read more about the Independent Stakeholder Group by clicking the button below:

Independent Stakeholder Group (ISG)

Our long-term vision

We have a clear long-term vision for how distribution networks can deliver decarbonisation, unlock economic growth and drive wider consumer value. In fact, we’re the first Distribution Network Operator to set out our thinking for ED3. This establishes three clear priorities for ED3:

To drive economic growth and enrich the communities and environments we operate in.
To develop agile and digitally-enabled electricity networks, to meet diverse customer and energy system needs.
To ensure our business and networks are resilient in the face of growing challenges, so it can efficiently deliver its plans.

We are at the beginning of an exciting journey — building the electricity networks our communities will need to thrive in a net zero world.

Read our Emerging ED3 Strategy

"The importance of distribution networks has never been clearer and, as we approach the critical ED3 period, we are also clear about our role; to develop our network and services to empower communities and enable growth. By doing this, we’ll help families and communities realise the societal and economic benefits we know decarbonisation will bring."

"We want to start an open and honest conversation with our customers and stakeholders about what they want to see us prioritise and develop in ED3, helping us build a truly customer- and stakeholder-led business plan."

Chris Burchell
Managing Director of SSEN Distribution

Our ED3 Business Plan