Register to attend our DSO Conference for 2025! This event is being held from 10:00 to 15:00 on 29 October 2025 at the North Lakes Hotel, Ullswater Rd CA11 8QT in Penrith. The event is designed to provide a comprehensive update on our progress over the past six months and a forward-looking view of the next six months.
With a focus on flexibility and data, the event will showcase how we are advancing our DSO initiatives. You'll have the opportunity to engage in discussions, share feedback and explore how our DSO activities are directly benefiting you, as well as how we plan to continue delivering value through enhanced flexibility services and greater data transparency. We look forward to seeing you there.
SP ENW is committed to ensuring that critical skills shortages in the energy sector are being fulfilled. This month, we welcomed 31 new apprentices into our state-of-the-art Training Academy in Blackburn, as part of our apprenticeship programme. Stephanie Trubshaw, SP Electricity North West’s chief operating officer, said: “Green growth is at the forefront of what the business wants to achieve, and apprentices play a key role in achieving our goals.
As well as investing in our network through capital investment for increased reliability and resilience, we also investigate innovative technology to more effectively utilise the network. We've recently been awarded an extra £5.5 million of extra funding for our innovative CoolDown project, from Ofgem's Strategic Innovation Fund. The project is currently investigating the effects of air conditioning on the network. Research has indicated that air conditioning use is increasing, which will add extra stress on the power network over the coming years
This month, SP Electricity North West hosted two successful engagement sessions with Local Authority (LA) representatives, one in Manchester and another in Kendal, bringing together key stakeholders from across Greater Manchester, Lancashire, and Cumbria.
These sessions focused on strengthening collaboration around energy infrastructure planning, investment, and delivery.
We explored: Capital Investment Plans with updates on strategic energy planning from the National Energy System Operator ahead of the tRESP consultation. Resilience Building through joined-up approaches to electrification, street works coordination, and community support. Meaningful Engagement—listening first-hand to LA priorities and challenges to shape our processes and improve outcomes.
This month we held three of our Stakeholder Advisory Panels for Q2 24/25. Thankyou to all panel members who attended and engaged with us - we really appreciate and value your feedback and discussion on the topics covered.
Our Advisory Panels ensure that local and national stakeholders can engage with us on the issues that matter, and provide a conduit to holding SP ENW to account on its Business Plan Commitments. Our Q2 meetings are typically where we cover our 24/25 full year results and answer questions from stakeholders on our progress.
- On 1 September we held the first in-person meeting of the Digital Futures Panel, which covered Digital Grid, Cyber resilience and Telecoms resilience.
- On 4 September, the Environment & Sustainability Panel met online and discussed our Business Plan Commitments, heard an update on our Environment Report, and our work on STEM education to inspire the next generation of electricity sector experts.
- Finally to round off the month, the Economic Growth Panel met online on the 19th of September and discussed our Business Plan Commitments, our Street works programme, and a look at our DSO programme, as well as the benefits that flexibility services can provide to local businesses.
We have continued our integration in the Iberdrola and Scottish Power family with the launch of our new SP Electricity North West brand and the appointment of Stephanie Trubshaw as our new Chief Operating Officer.
Over the summer months we have maximised the opportunity to forge forward with investment to strengthen the network, find out here. We also provided local authorities, Enterprising Cumbria, and NESO partners with an update on the strategic improvements taking place at Harker, a crucial interface with National Grid and across the Cumbria Ring.
Work is now under way on a major electrical project which will enhance and upgrade the power network in Cumbria.
Engineers from SP Electricity North West have started work on the next stage of its £14m Westmorland project. Teams will work to install 11km of new 33,000-volt underground electricity cables while a new substation will also be built.
This month we supported the Hartington Hut Fun Day, next to our Preston depot, which brought together local families and children together. The STEM and Take Charge, Go Low teams shared tips about saving energy at home and being more sustainable. Fun-filled interactive STEM games enabled children to learn about electricity and energy, to spark the next generation of engineers and experts on energy.
Thousands of people have been enjoying the outdoors and despite holiday season coming to a close, SP Electricity North West is continuing to call on people to be cautious around its power network by looking out, looking up, and taking note of its substations and yellow ‘danger of death’ signs.This month saw a number of incidents of young people being found playing near dangerous electrical assets and equipment.
July was another busy monthy, with the start of our Summer Safety campaign and an international trip for our Strategy and Growth Director Ben Grunfeld.
Our Strategy and Growth Director Ben Grunfeld joined a team of executives from Manchester, including GMCA Mayor Andy Burnham, at an engagement event in Japan earlier this month. He joined the #GMJapan25 net zero panel alongside Greater Manchester Combined Authority, Panasonic and Daikin UK to discuss Greater Manchester's 2038 net zero ambitions.
We're urging farmers to prioritise safety this summer, after 19 separate incidents occurred on the power network, with the possibility of more going unreported. As well as posing significant safety risks, many of the incidents have also led to power cuts in the local areas while engineers make the area safe.
In July, we once again sponsored the Cumbria Tourism awards where the county's leading businesses, individuals and supporters gathered to celebrate outstanding achievement.
Our Net Zero Terrace project has been awarded the top prize for "Initiative – Energy Distribution or Industrial Breakthrough” at The Energy Awards 2025.
Finally, the results for the DSO Satisfaction Survey are in: with the score at 8.86, this is a strong improvement on last year's result. This shows that stakeholders not only value our approach to engagement, but they also recognise that we’re listening, acting, and delivering on what matters.
In June we held a successful in-person meeting of the Economic Growth Advisory Panel at Bruntwood Scitech in Manchester. The panel heard about ways in which the operations teams manage the network and how new technology keeps it reliable. We also heard from the DSO team on flexibility, and on capital investment.
The Digital Futures Advisory Panel also met in June, with a look into Digital Grid, the Digital Strategy and Action Plan, and open data and AI.
The Biodiversity team held an open day at their Penwortham biodiversity tree planting site in mid-June. Members of the Environment and Sustainability Panel, as well as Local Authorities, University representatives, academics, and energy stakeholders. We’re planting 10,000 trees every year from 2023 – 2028. This will strengthen biodiversity and enhance green spaces across our local areas
Economic growth and enabling access to the electricity network was the theme as North West leaders backed calls for further region-wide investment in the power network.
The calls came at an Electricity North West hosted event in Westminster with regional MPs, industry representatives, government, and Ofgem, where it shared further details of its proposed additional £200m investment plan through March 2028.
In May, we announced our latest investment news - a £13m upgrade for the underground network of power cables in Oldham. This upgrade benefits over 42,000 households and replaced ageing infrastructure with modern cabling to enable more electrification to support low-carbon technologies.
We announced a £12m flexibility tender for Greater Manchester, Lancashire, and Cumbria. The tender seeks just shy of 900MW worth of flexibility services over 100 locations, including new opportunities on the low-voltage network. Homes and businesses can now be play an active role in the system.
ENWL also won the top award for its apprenticeship scheme, winning 'Best Apprenticeship in Energy and Utilities’ at the 2025 National Apprenticeship Guide Awards. In addition, we received our certification for supporting vulnerable customers, through the awarding of ISO 22458 Kitemark. We are proud to demonstrate our commitment to providing services that are fair, flexible, and accessible to all.
Our April newsletter covered our top Ofgem ranking - winning the regulator's top ranking for DNOs as part of its annual report for the first year of ED2. ENWL scored high marks in all eight categories, a first for a UK DNO.
The Energy Minister met with ENWL executive leaders and discussed the role of DNOs in reducing customer electricity bills without requiring them to change their behaviour. Scottish Power CEO Keith Anderson was also in attendence. The Minister praised ENWL's efforts and noted the importance of DNOs in reducing carbon emissions through electrification.
We hosted our first DSO conference of 2025 at the Lowry Hotel. Key stakeholders, local authority representatives and industry leaders met to share insights and develop solutions for the future of the energy system.
We also called for feedback on our EV charging infrastructure strategy.
In March's newsletter we updated stakeholders of the UK Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) approval to clear the acquisition of an 88% shareholding in Electricity North West by Iberdrola S.A., through its subsidiary Scottish Power.
We appealed to partners to spread the word about the Radio Teleswitch Service switch off. The RTS is a service that produces the radio signal to household meters that have off peak tariffs but are not smart meters. It is provided by the electricity supplier with the service switched off in June 2025. We provided guidance to those affected and appealed to our partners to help inform their communities.
We also provided details of upcoming events including the bi-annual DSO conference, Low Voltage Distribution and Connections Reform webinars and a innovation CoolDown project webinar.
In February's newsletter there was a summery of the devestation of Storm Éowyn that had landed in the UK on 23 January. Our region saw wind speeds of 83mph with tree branches and debris causing widespread destruction by damaging and bringing down overhead power lines.
We launched our Distribution System Operation Voice of the North West event focused on co-developing our DSO strategy.
There was also a final chance to particpate in our Stakeholder Satisfaction Survey.
We submitted plans to Ofgem of the load related incremental £200m investment plan to support the region’s continued clean growth through expansion of critical infrastructure.
In Janaury colleagues and customers battled severe weather, including wind, freezing temperatures snow and flooding over the new year period. 90% of the 16,700 properties affected by flooding, had power restored within three minutes by rerouting supplies, however, some customers were severely impacted. The flooding was the quickly followed by freezing temperatures and snow across most of the region. More than 17,000 customers were impacted, but again investment in automated technology meant that nearly 11,000 were restored within three minutes.
In the Janaury newsletter we invited stakeholders to take part in our Stakeholder Satisfaction Survey, our Extra Care Partnership Fund opened, and our gas and transmission energy partners launched their future business plans: National Grid published their RIIO-T3 business plan, Cadent and Northern Gas Networks published their RIIO-GD3 business plans.