Engagement hub

In December we submitted our business plan to energy regulator, Ofgem, following more than two years of engagement with stakeholders and customers. The plan covers our £1.8bn plan to invest in the network between 2023-2028.

Ofgem are now reviewing all plans from network operators and as part of that process they are looking for further stakeholder feedback as part of their ‘call for input’. This is a great opportunity for you, independently as stakeholders, to put your points across directly to Ofgem to support the plan and stress to Ofgem the importance of those aspects of the plan that you have helped develop or are key to your organisation.

Ofgem’s call for input closes on 7 February and we would appreciate you sharing your support for either the plan as a whole, or any particular aspects of the plan that you feel strongly about for Ofgem to consider when making decisions on it.

Ofgem will be looking hard at justification for expenditure for things like net zero, environmental activity, resilience and support for customers in vulnerable circumstances. Post-pandemic the economic situation (and stakeholder feedback) shows that there should be a role for Electricity North West to provide additional services, for example to customers in vulnerable circumstances, but we expect some this to come under intense scrutiny.

These responses will form the basis of Ofgem’s ‘open hearing’ with us on 22 March to discuss our plan. As a stakeholder you are invited to observe, make points or ask questions at the hearing and we’d welcome your continued support. We will share more information on the 'open hearing' soon. 

We thank you for your continued support. If you have any questions, please contact us at stakeholderengagement@enwl.co.uk.

On 26 November Storm Arwen caused the most widespread and destructive damage to the electricity network that we have seen in decades with a million properties affected across the country, including 100,000 in the North West. The impact on communities has been enormous and our repair and rebuild of the network is still ongoing, long after we restored power to the last property.

When an incident of this magnitude takes place, it is important that we take time to carry out a full review and establish if there are any lessons to be learned to improve the response.

You may have heard that both the government and energy regulator, Ofgem, are carrying out their own reviews into the incident. We will of course be contributing to these reviews in detail and we are also carrying out our own review for which we need your input.

As a key stakeholder, we’re really keen to hear from you so that we can understand your experiences and thoughts to feed into our review. In January we will also be conducting focus groups with customers and organisations from our local resilience forums.

We want to keep the remit of the review broad and have set out the below questions as a rough guide. Please do comment on any aspect of the incident and Electricity North West’s role in it. Please send us your thoughts by Friday 21 January to stakeholderengagement@enwl.co.uk.

• What was the impact on your organisation and those you represent?
• What was your role?
• How did you work with Electricity North West?
• How could the response have been improved?