92: Harnessing the power of open data

Fraser and Becky (& Becky's dog Kaya!) are joined by Angus Paterson, Electric Vehicles Strategy Senior Officer at Essex County Council, and Joe Ash, Net Zero Associate at UK Power Networks.

In this episode we chat about how Essex is harnessing the power of open data to fulfil their net zero planning ambitions, and how the relationship between councils and UKPN works.

As promised in the episode:

https://ukpowernetworks.opendatasoft.com/pages/laep/

https://www.yourlocalnetzerohub.co.uk/

EPISODE TRANSCRIPT

[music flourish]

Becky: Hello and welcome to Local Zero with Fraser and Becky.

Fraser: Today on the pod we're joined by Angus Patterson.

Fraser: Angus is Electric Vehicle Strategy Senior Officer at Essex County Council. In this episode we chat to him about how Essex is harnessing the power of open data to support their local energy and net zero planning ambitions.

Angus: There really is only so much we can find out from a map that might be incomplete without speaking to someone.

Angus: So if we're looking at a particular street to potentially put an EV charger in, but we don't know, for example, what the parking pressure is on that street. And we don't know how the local residents feel about the lack of available parking. That's where those conversations, we might really find them helpful because we can go, ah, actually, okay, maybe it's not the best idea to put something on that street.

Angus: That's going to draw in even more traffic to take up parking space, which those residents therefore won't have access to.

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Becky: So, Fraser, today, very exciting, we're talking all about stuff that's going on right now in the real world, using new forms of data, new forms of open data to actually help drive forward net zero ambitions in places. Bit geeky, but very exciting.

Fraser: It is very exciting. I think it's um, it's an underrated development in the overall net zero transition.

Fraser: So this, this trend towards leveraging data and I think important to say, we're not just thinking about any old, any old data here that's used all the time, but leveraging more sort of local level, sub national level data to help different towns, cities, authority areas, uh, to support them to transition to net zero, to harness that transition in a way that meets their needs and reflects their ambitions and perspectives and plans.

Fraser: I think it's a really, really exciting time and a really exciting trend in the wider net zero landscape.

Becky: It is. And I do think though, I mean, we talk about local area energy planning quite a lot these days, and sometimes I forget, perhaps this is a relatively new terminology. They're certainly not a relatively new concept because obviously councils have been doing planning for years and years and years.

Becky: I think what is really exciting for me and, and particularly coming out the back of our, you know, our five year energy rev research program, coming out the back of all the work that was done, By a huge number of places in the prospering from the energy revolution program that innovate UK Spearheaded and going now into the thriving places program again driven by innovate uk.

Becky: Is this real?

Fraser: Becky? What is that?

Becky: Oh, I love that kaya wants to join the discussion

Fraser: kaya's a big fan as well, isn't she? Local area energy planning.

Becky: Yeah. Huge fan of the pod.

Fraser: Yeah. So for, for listeners who, who can't see what's going on here, Becky's dog has been hiding off screen, um, and just started making a little bit of noise there for some attention and is now on Becky's lap, licking her face as we try and have a very serious chat. about open data and local area energy. I think she's just enthusiastic.

Becky: Yeah. Very enthusiastic because obviously it's going to drastically change her life, you know, walkies around the new substations and so on. But in all seriousness, I do, I do think that this is a very exciting exciting topic and an exciting time because it's allowing local areas to take more control of that energy future.

Becky: We've often talked about how councils, local authorities, they know their communities best, and they can really look to develop out that energy future in line with other kind of key priorities that they are, that they're facing all the time. So, so really exciting stuff for us to, for us to talk about. But I mean, is it worth just kind of touching base on, uh, on what we really mean when we're talking about local area energy planning.

Fraser: Yes, definitely. So the, the theme of this episode is it's focused around the use of data in local area energy planning, but for, for anyone who doesn't know, uh, local area energy planning is where. predominantly local authorities, you know, county councils, but other stakeholders as well, essentially make their net zero energy plan in their local area.

Fraser: So they take lots of useful data and they speak to lots of stakeholders, um, within their, within their authority area to get their perspectives and their plans for decarbonization, to get an understanding of You know, in the future, where are people likely to need to charge the cars, what different services and industries are going to electrify and and by when, what are their plans for decarbonizing heat in different houses or public sector buildings, et cetera, et cetera.

Fraser: So it allows local authorities mainly, but again, other local stakeholders to band together within a within an area within a place and plan out that that energy. That energy future using data. So traditionally we've planned the energy system, the transition very centrally, very top down from national government.

Fraser: And this decentralization represents more of a trend towards recognizing that the transition itself will look different, you know, in Dundee than in Dagenham or in Orkney than in Oxford. And it enables those local stakeholders. To plan out that transition from themselves in a way that reflects their own local ambition and realizes that that wider local value to enable investment and economic development and social value and all that, all that good stuff that goes with it.

Fraser: Is that a fair assessment, Becky? Do you have anything to add?

Becky: Yeah, I think that's, I think that's a brilliant description and overview. And I think there's probably not much more for us to say, but to get right on into this discussion and hear from, from two people who are working to advance this in in very exciting ways.

Fraser: Before we get started, just a quick couple of acronyms to unpack. So DNO, DNO stands for Distribution Network Operator. Those are the people who run electricity from the local substation through the wires and into your house. We also have GIS, GIS stands for Geographic Information System and this is the tool, the process that computers use to visualise, analyse and interpret geographic data such as, you know, within local authorities, towns or communities on a spatial level.

Becky: Yeah, let's bring in our guests.

Angus: Hello, my name is Angus Patterson and I'm the Electric Vehicle Strategy Senior Officer at Essex County Council.

Becky: Thank you for joining us today. Angus, before we get into the nuts and bolts and really digging into what you're doing, maybe we can just kind of hear a little bit more about the importance of things like local area energy planning that you're getting involved with and why that matters, how it's been evolving and particularly, you know, your, your role in it coming from that E V perspective.

Angus: Yeah. Thanks, Becky. Great to be with you guys. I joined Essex County Council a few months ago and I've been working within a great team. The wider department I'm in is the sustainable transport department, but I'm also interfacing quite a lot with our energy team. And I know that local area energy planning is massively important, both in terms of things like the leveling up agenda for Essex, which is a big driver of our, of our sort of countywide policy, but also in terms of, um, our net zero carbon goals.

Angus: Um, we want to be leading locally, um, and collaborating with our district councils and even down to town and parish councils as well in terms of local area energy planning. And in terms of our next big local transport plan. Which is our sort of whole systems wide, um, transport strategy for the foreseeable future.

Angus: So having a peek into all those different projects has been really interesting for me and seeing the value of data, open data and tools that allow you to, to view kind of data sets certain ways, particularly on a map, um, has been massively important. And then of course, for me and the EV strategy team.

Angus: I'm working on the planning for a large infrastructure project involving lots of private investment and also a significant amount of grant funding from central government through the Office of Zero Emission Vehicles. And we are absolutely indebted to the amazing data that we have available because it's really helping us to plan.

Angus: It's really helping us to figure out where exactly do we want these thousands of EV charges that that we can put in the, in the public highway to go. Um, and it's been really interesting doing some of that work, digging into the data, digging into the detail on lots of different things and figuring out what we want to prioritize and who we want to try and serve.

Angus: Um, so yeah, it's been, been a really interesting journey for me, but I think, you know, it's, it's a privilege to be part of a, a vision really for net zero and for a, for a strong local energy, local area, local economy. Energy plan.

Becky: And just what, what are, what is your vision for net zero? How are you, do you have sort of, uh, maybe you could share some of the, the targets that, that you've set.

Becky: And I guess coupling in with that, if we look back just a few years, we probably saw transport planning sit quite separately from the whole energy agenda. So this sounds like you're taking a much more integrated approach then to, to try and deliver on your net zero ambitions.

Angus: Yeah. Essex's sort of target alongside, I think, the national target is to net zero carbon by 2050, but it's through a kind of commission that was set up by Essex County Council, and there are lots of recommendations that that commission has made, but I think you're right, the transport planning sort of side has really come into alignment with the energy planning, particularly as we look to increase the use of, um, obviously things like rail travel and then electric vehicles. And our electric vehicle strategy really does try and be integrated with the rest of our kind of whole transport systems and to hopefully enable a transition towards sustainable and public transport and active travel, rather than just reliance on the pub, the private car, which is People currently mostly do, but in terms of EVs, obviously the charging infrastructure, the charging network across Essex is going to require masses of energy.

Angus: And so there is definitely an element of, of local area energy planning, not just in terms of saving energy and making things more energy efficient, but also generating energy. So looking at our own Energy generation in Essex and how much can we, are we contributing locally to, to the grid and to our own energy usage for the future.

Angus: So yeah, it's definitely become more integrated transport and the wider agenda. And, um, that's something I find really interesting. And again, we're looking at lots of different data as we plan for our big infrastructure project of putting thousands of charge points in the ground to making sure that, that we're not overloading the grid and making sure that, that there's plenty of capacity and, and things like that.

Angus: So yes, it's really cool.

Fraser: One of the, one of the big challenges we've heard about in the past is around that data piece is around availability of data to support energy planning. Do sort of local authorities or councils have that in-house? Can they source it from other places? And how do you make sure that it's interoperable, that it's usable for the local authority as it is for the network, et cetera.

Fraser: I was wondering if you could speak a little bit more to the types of data that you're using and maybe some of the challenges that you've had in accessing that data and, and how those have been overcome.

Angus: So I would say. The, in my projects, the types of data that we mostly are looking at are kind of geospatial data sets.

Angus: So things that essentially you can view on a map and some of the data that we have access to, um, through UK power networks and also, um, in lots of other ways involves just sort of plotting things on a map and looking at, for example, where the local substations are and looking at whether the network topology is where the power cables literally where they go.

Angus: Okay. Uh, as well as things like demographic data. So we're looking at kind of things like population and age and gender balance and all that sort of stuff, as well as things like indices of deprivation, different kinds of deprivation as well, and making sure that, that we kind of are targeting those, those groups of demographics that, that we want to sort of help level up as it were.

Angus: But yeah, mostly the data that we look at is geospatial stuff. So it's kind of our GIS files and, and all that. Um, the challenges around getting access to that data. I think have gotten a lot easier. Um, and certainly in my relatively short time so far working at a county council, I've found that we've been able to access data for free, either that's public domain data completely open or that's been made available to us as a public domain.

Angus: As local authority staff officers, that's been really, really useful. There is obviously the option to pay for data sets. And there are businesses that are, that are, you know, undertaking that sort of work and then selling those data sets to local authorities. Um, but we haven't found that we've really needed to, to pay for much, which has been really great.

Angus: There's so much data available kind of in the public domain now that we can use that to, to fulfill most of our of our planning needs really. So it's been, it's been great actually not to have to rely on, um, the kind of private sector and pay kind of consultants and data analysts to do lots of work for us, um, which helps us to obviously save budget.

Angus: Um, and we, we do still spend money where we need to. Um, it also helps us to, I guess, work with, um, the stakeholders and the, the organizations that are providing that data more closely. And obviously one of those organizations is our DNO UK Power Networks.

Fraser: So I think there's an interesting, an interesting point here.

Fraser: The demographic side of it. Um, I imagine we know again from local area energy planning, but for transport specifically, a lot of that must have to do with behaviour, right? With how people interact with the transport system, the decisions they make, where they need to get to, what their needs might be, how much of that can you capture today within data versus how much stakeholder engagement do you need to do surveys, workshops, interviews with people to, to really make, to round that data out so that you have those, those fuller insights?

Angus: Yeah, that's a great question. I definitely say it's, it's still a bit of both. And that's where collaboration with our local councils, our district and borough councils, as well as town and parish councils is really important. And I speak regularly to people from all over Essex who really, really know their, their communities and their local areas at a, at a granular level, um, which obviously we don't perhaps quite know as, as sort of county wide staff officers, but there's so much data available now that.

Angus: speaks volumes of how people interact with the transport system. Obviously the road network is a huge one and we have all sorts of data on things like traffic flow and, and, and, um, how people use our roads as well as our rail networks. And obviously our, uh, our, our public transport have, have lots of data of their own, but I think where we find it most helpful to really speak to people.

Angus: Particularly leaders in, in kind of very local areas is again, on my project, looking at electric vehicles and where are the best locations to, to put EV charges. There really is only so much we can, we can find out from a map might be incomplete without speaking to someone. So if we're looking at a particular street to potentially put an EV charger in, we don't know, for example, what the parking pressure is on that street.

Angus: And we don't know how the local residents feel about the lack of available parking. For example, that's where those conversations might really find that we might really find them helpful because we can go, ah, actually, okay, maybe it's not the best idea to, to put something on that street. That's going to draw in even more traffic to take up parking space, which those residents therefore won't have access to.

Angus: So yeah, definitely the local knowledge of lots of the people that we speak to can be really important, but we can get a good proportion of the way there, just with all the data sets that we can have access to.

Becky: Could you flesh out for us a little bit about what this looks like? Cause we've been talking about EV chargers and in my mind, I'm thinking, well, you know, I live, I live down in the depths of Cornwall.

Becky: So there's almost no EV chargers where I live. And so I've ranted on the pod before, actually, I used to drive an EV when I lived in Glasgow and When I moved down to Cornwall, I had to get rid of it because the infrastructure was just so challenging. So I'd be really interested to understand a little bit more, like what you really mean when you're talking about this local EV infrastructure, what does that look like for you?

Becky: What's your vision for that? What's it going to evolve into?

Angus: Well, I spent a lot of my time talking about this, so I'll try to be, to be brief. So we're talking about, uh, yeah, large infrastructure project that involves grant funding that's been made available. By central government through department of transport and the office of zero emission vehicles, that's called the LEVI fund.

Angus: So Levi or Levy, whatever you want to call it. Um, and that stands for local electric vehicle infrastructure. And the government announced that in, in the kind of second quarter of 2023, I think totaling about 380 million pounds. Um, but all kind of pre allocated across different county level, local authorities.

Angus: Across England and Wales. So different counties have different amounts of, of Levi funding that they've already been allocated. And Essex is something like the fifth or sixth largest amount. So we're in a really great position in terms of being able to really invest in that, that, um, infrastructure in our, in our county.

Angus: I'm not sure how much Cornwall has been allocated, so I don't know how much they'll be able to do in terms of that, in terms of that lack of infrastructure down, down in the depths of, you know, Penzance or whatever.

Angus: But, um, I guess we're, we're being offered the chance to bid for that funding by local government to basically turbocharge the, the electric vehicle charging network in our county, and particularly to try and fill a gap that has been sort of opened up in the market where there's lots of EV charges now going in.

Angus: Or all over the strategic road network. So along motorways, dual carriageways, at service stations, etc. And a lot of those are rapid charges, the kind of really high level, high power level. But there seems to be a lack of slower, lower powered on street charging infrastructure for people to charge near their homes.

Angus: And there are residents who due to the fact that they don't have a driveway or a garage and access to that their own sort of on plot off street parking space, they can't get a charger installed on their house on the wall of their house yet. And so the The, the fund really is to help fill that gap to provide the on street infrastructure that those residents are going to need in order to feel comfortable, feel able to make the switch to an electric vehicle from an internal combustion engine vehicle.

Angus: So we're, we're deliberately not going towards areas where there is lots, there are lots of people with driveways. We're deliberately trying to target more of the people who live in flats and people who live in terraced housing, enabling them to have charging infrastructure that's that's within walking distance, ideally of their homes and enables them to charge on street.

Angus: In a way that's hopefully affordable, or at least affordable compared to rapid charging at a service station. There's obviously still an issue with the level of VAT that's, that's added to public charges versus home energy tariffs. And there'll always be that slight disparity, but we want to make it as As equitable as possible that the energy transition, the electric vehicle transition.

Angus: So, um, we're, we're really taking measures to try and control the tariffs that the people are charged. But anyway, that's almost a separate point. The point is the fund is sort of targeted towards this specific market gap that's opened up and to help turbocharge investment into that sector with the hope that eventually it won't need public subsidy and it will just, it will be a self sustaining market on its own kind of thing.

Angus: So, um, yeah, it's these next few years that are, that are really important and that have been identified by the government as, as needing that, that, that investment. And it's our job as, as the county level, local authorities across England and Wales to, to do the planning, to make sure that they're in the right places and to work with all our local stakeholders and our energy, energy companies and, and DNOs and all that to, uh, to make sure it's done sustainably, safely and properly..

Fraser: I think you, you, you mentioned there, Angus, that the, the point about equity, making sure it's an equitable transition, which is something we come back to time and again on this pod, you mentioned it might be a separate point. I actually think it might be central to this as well in terms of where you're planning for how much of that is, socio economic in terms of, you know, the people more likely to live in flats versus detached houses.

Fraser: How central are those socio economic factors in that point about an equitable transition? How central is that to this work in your mind?

Angus: It's really important. It's really important. And within our kind of planning framework that we've developed for site selection, if you like, so locations for EV charging infrastructure, we take into account lots of socio economic data.

Angus: So I talked a little bit earlier about indices of multiple deprivation, as well as the things like the percentage of housing that, that has, or doesn't have off street parking, which is, I guess, a good way to an indicator of perhaps of average income. And, and we, we essentially know pretty well where in Essex that those, those areas are, where there is a much higher density of housing.

Angus: There's a much higher proportion of people that don't have a driveway or don't have a garage. And we absolutely, we need to target those areas to make sure that the charging infrastructure Is put in in abundance so that so that those residents, many of whom perhaps want to look at getting an electric vehicle, but currently just don't feel like they can because of partly because of a lack of local charging infrastructure so that they feel that there will come a time where they can make that switch and when they do so they won't be ripped off for the energy.

Angus: They won't be kind of charged more or charged way, way more than perhaps wealthier person who's charging on their driveway. That equitability question is, is a tension that we have to sort of hold. And it's not the case that we'll absolutely avoid particular locations. We're, we're making sure that we get lots and lots of charge points in all of our districts covering lots and lots of areas because loads of Essex, there's a really mixed housing kind of, um, housing landscape, if you like. So there isn't really a place where we're going to say no to, but it's more about how many charge points go in this location, as opposed to this, this place.

Angus: So socioeconomic stuff is definitely really important and it is central in our strategy. We sort of published an EV strategy last year to out to public consultation, got a really positive feedback, 75 percent either agreeing or strongly agreeing with it. And, and a big part of that strategy is, is trying to make sure that our charging network is, is fairly priced, equitable, accessible, and, and lots of other really important things.

Becky: Just focusing back in then on how you're working with UK Power Networks, how have you been working with them? What sort of, what sort of data have you been using from them? Have they been providing you with other forms of support? And maybe you could just tell us a little bit more about that and, and give us a bit more insight into some of the ways in which these new forms of data, these new forms of tools that we're seeing and hearing more and more about has, has actually been really influencing the work that you've been doing.

Angus: So UK Power Networks have, have really done two, two big things. One is that they've set up an open data portal, which is kind of publicly available and you can sort of set up an account and access all kinds of different data sets, but they've also done a really amazing planning tool that's available to us as local authorities called your local net zero hub, that involves a mapping kind of function where there's lots of geospatial kind of data sets.

Angus: And one of the most helpful things that, that they've done for us is, is provide information on every local substation area. So they've got a sort of planning tool where you can put in a level of power output that you might be looking at. And then it will tell you what the sort of headroom is on that local, on the substation where, where you're, where you're going.

Angus: Which is really, really helpful because it enables us to, to ensure that we know where certain charge point infrastructure might need the, the network to be upgraded in a location where it might even need a new substation, for example. But we also know where there's plenty of capacity for, for charging infrastructure and the network won't need to be significantly upgraded. And that's obviously a huge impact in terms of cost and, and the cost of ZFX, how much value for money that we get from the grant funding, which is a really important thing.

Angus: So. The data that they've made available to us is, is really helping us to sort of better idea of costs of the project overall than, than we would have otherwise, perhaps by knowing just where there's plenty of capacity on the network and where the network would need to be bolstered and, and sort of upgraded and what that might do to the sort of the finances of things. Um, so that's one of the most helpful data sets, but, but the tool has so much out there that we can use. There's also stuff around housing and solar panels and heat pump usage. And so there's, there's energy generation data from from that renewable stuff, the solar particularly, there's stuff around energy demand, future projected energy demand.

Angus: There's stuff on things like fuel poverty as well. There's things like, um, they've, they've got the indices of multiple deprivation data as well, sort of hooked into to their tool. And they've got loads of stuff. They've got the full sort of map of where currently EV charge points all are through ZAP map and things.

Angus: So it's. Yeah, there's so much that we can use, but particularly the, I'd say the most helpful thing is, is just the amount that we can see for each individual local substation. I mean, it's, it's extraordinary really that we can know where to put a charge point, where we can have, we can cause a minimal amount of sort of extra work.

Angus: To be needed on the network where we can, we can sort of play to the strengths of, of the grid, if you see what I mean, and where necessary, where we need to get charge points in a certain place, because we know there's residents in that area that really will need EV infrastructure so that they can make the switch to an electric vehicle.

Angus: At least we then know, okay. We're going to have to stump up a bigger cost to put a new substation in there and make sure the grid, make sure the network has enough capacity there so that we're not overloading it. So yeah, it's been massively helpful to, to, to view all of that data. And as I say, some of that is, is on their open data portal, completely open to the public as well.

Angus: So it's amazing what you can, what you can really. Get your head around nowadays, uh, if you're, if you're a concerned citizen.

Becky: Okay. So we're just going to pause our chat with Angus for a few minutes to bring in an expert voice from the Energy Network side of this project.

Joe: I'm Joe Ash, uh, Net Zero Associate working in the local Net Zero team at UK Power Networks Distribution System Operator.

Becky: So we've just been hearing from Angus about some of the tools and resources that you've been working on. resources that they have been using to help with their, um, to help with their planning. But maybe you could tell us a little bit more about what UK Power Networks has been doing in this space.

Joe: Yeah, sure.

Joe: So I suppose there's two main resources that we've been working on. Uh, the first is our dedicated local area energy planning open data portal. So this is a kind of like sub page of our overall open data portal, which we've had for a number of years, but through engagement with local authorities, which we've been doing for a little while now.

Joe: They told us that access to data and not just UKPN's own data, but external data, third party data was a bit of a barrier to net zero projects as well. So we worked with, uh, Regen and then collaborated with Essex County Council and the Greater London Authority to really understand what sorts of data sets would be required for doing these sorts of net zero projects.

Joe: So the, the local area energy planning, open data portal, it's a bit of a mouthful.

Becky: It is a mouthful, isn't it?

Joe: It is a bit, trust me, when you say it 10 times in a row, you get used to it. Yeah. That page went live in October, 2022, and we've been kind of refreshing it, updating it. And there's now over 160 data sets all in one place and they're indexed by like use case.

Joe: So one of the things we quite like about it is that you can go on there. Think of a use case. Yeah. I want to connect renewable generation, click on that. And then it just loads all those datasets that you need all in one place.

Becky: Amazing. And I can very clearly see how that could be highly useful to councils.

Becky: But why does this matter to you at UK Power Networks? Why is this important for networks?

Joe: Well I suppose because The way that we do, uh, network planning, you know, building new substations, new cables, innovative solutions like flexibility, they're all done through forecasting, right? So we produce forecasts on an annual basis, which give us a view of how many, uh, electric vehicles, solar panels, heat pumps.

Joe: All these sorts of things are going to be on the network. I suppose the kind of issue with that is it's very much done as an internal thing. It's a forecast that we produce and we use locally enhanced data, but it's, it's still a, an internal forecast and it's homogenous across our entire license area.

Joe: And that's not really how it's actually going to work. You know, different councils are moving at different paces. Some are using different technologies. Some are going, you know, centralised. Some are going decentralised, hydrogen, electric, heat pumps, heat networks. And we don't really have a huge amount of visibility of that from their plans.

Joe: So, I suppose it's two fold really. One, we're trying to build these good relationships with local authorities. And then two, we're trying to have this two way data sharing. So we're opening up all this data to make, uh, make sure that they're making these kind of informed choices when it comes to net zero planning.

Joe: But then they're sending those plans back to us. So we can actually update our forecast with this locally enhanced plans and just make sure that we're making best value decisions. Investing in the network where it needs to be and overall just saving time and money for the bill payers.

Becky: That sounds really interesting.

Becky: So how can councils share back with you?

Joe: So we've actually developed six different ways where councils can share their plans, kind of corresponding to a range of different data that might be available. So on the kind of Low end if councils have just got an idea around policy, they've got an idea of what technologies they want to do.

Joe: They can share those plans with us through the, through the hub itself. But on the other end of they've got like a really detailed data driven local area energy plan. We've created a data dictionary, which basically sets out a standardized format where they can share this information with us. So I suppose the key message is we've got six different ways, no matter decarbonization journey, get in touch, share your information.

Joe: So we're all on the same page and all making best decisions for, for residents and bill payers.

Becky: Brilliant. And it sounds like you're, you're really making headway with the work you're doing with Essex County Council. If other folk wanted to get involved, access to support, so other county councils, other local councils, you know, who can access this sort of data and how do they go about doing it?

Joe: Sure. So, The data is available in two places. I think the overall thing for any local authority listening to this is go to your local net zero hub. Uh, I think it will be in the podcast description. It's basically the one stop shop. It's got everything that we've, everything that we produce all in one place.

Joe: So it's got a link to the open data portal, but alongside that, it's also got the link to our free to use energy planning tool, and this is where we bring together all these data sets, but also kind of geospatial analysis. Uh, data visualization, energy optioneering. So kind of, if I put a heat pump here, what does that mean?

Joe: If I put an EV charger here, what does that mean? And it also kind of enables collaboration across within the council, across councils and with UKPN so that we've all got kind of visibility of what we're trying to do and we can share that information with each other. Uh, we've actually, we're running fortnightly drop in sessions and bespoke one to one sessions.

Joe: So, uh, go to the page and you can book meetings with the team, access it all through there. We've also got, uh, so that's the, the ng planning tool. And we've also got links to the open data portal itself, but there's other resources as well. We've got case studies in explanation of how the overall process of informing that we're planning planning works, basically, I'll just say.

Joe: Go to the website, book a meeting with us and we can talk through everything through there.

Becky: Amazing. And we'll definitely make sure to share that in our show notes for anybody that's interested. Thank you so much, Joe, for joining us and sharing all of that. Really great insights. And now let's get back to the rest of our chat with Angus.

Becky: Clearly, EV infrastructure is a massive component and the use of the network data, but given all the other sort of information that's available and the increasingly, I guess, integrated planning that you're probably looking at coupling with thinking, you know, housing projections and more generation in the region.

Becky: And you mentioned earlier the shift to heat pumps. I mean, how do you think things might evolve into the future as this continues? What do you think this is going to look like for you? And do you have a Visions for how it will kind of extend through to delivering on your targets.

Angus: I think definitely the partnership that we are developing with UK Power Networks as a county council, um, and I, I massively recommend this to anyone who's listening, who works at a county council, who doesn't perhaps have that connection with, with the, um, with the network operator.

Angus: It needs to extend into the future because you're right. It's going to be essential if we're to deliver on our, on our net zero carbon targets. And we are working with them in lots of other ways, but even just within transport, you may have heard of, of a big project that's going on to build a new, uh, the first brand new train station, rail station on the, the main line out of London that goes out into Essex in the sort of Northeast part of Chelmsford, a Beaulieu Park development.

Angus: There's a massive new rail station being built there. And obviously that's going to require a whole load of planning in and of itself, but it's going to allow the, the, the, the rail schedules to completely change going up and down that male, that, that main line, because it's going to allow a train to sort of pull off and allow faster ones to overtake and all that sort of interesting stuff, I think.

Angus: So, so there's, there's obviously lots of energy demand that will be created by that on the rail network, as well as our projects and another private sector funded and, and local authority funded projects on EV infrastructure and other things. So. Having that connection with our, with our distribution network operator is going to be absolutely essential.

Angus: And in terms of our energy team, who are colleagues in a kind of another department in Essex County Council, who I often work with and and communicate with, they're seeing a real future potential in the kind of really local. Energy planning so they've got lots of community groups whether they be linked to for example parish councils or just groups of sort of interested residents who are forming companies and forming forming kind of nonprofit organizations to actually plan energy usage and sort of provision of renewable energy at a really, really local level.

Angus: Some of that's linked with, yeah, with organizations like, like schools, like churches and, and other community groups. And they really see that as kind of a really big part of the future that we would drill down sort of past the county level, past even the district level into, into sort of really local neighborhood level almost where groups of citizens can perhaps set up buying schemes for solar panels that enable them to share Energy generation collectively and all safe money on the bills and all that kind of stuff.

Angus: So, yeah, there's a really interesting piece of work around those groups. And as more of them start popping up and forming companies or non profit sort of charities and organizations, working with them to, to assess what their demands are. What their needs are, um, and whether particularly for my team, whether they want to put in an electric vehicle charger is obviously a really important thing.

Angus: So yeah, I think that's a really interesting part of the future that I, I wouldn't say I'm the big expert on, I wouldn't say I have a full understanding of it yet, but I think it's a really interesting thing because if you can almost devolve things down and delegate things down to a local level, it perhaps makes the job the, the regional authorities, the county level councils, and obviously the.

Angus: The network operator, the distribution network operator, a little bit easier because they know that there's going to be a certain amount of renewable energy, hopefully generated on those, on those local levels so that their investment in the network can be more targeted towards areas where those groups aren't yet ready or just framed so that the amount of energy they're planning to add to the capacity and the amount of energy they're planning to generate in the future isn't actually too much.

Fraser: Was there a learning curve at all for council staff using this, you know, this, this new information, this new data, these new processes and has, has this experience sort of shifted the way that your team or the wider council does sort of energy planning or planning more generally?

Angus: Yes, there has definitely been a learning curve. Part of that has been facilitated by central government and linked again with, with the grant funding. So they've mandated us to, as I said earlier, to work with, with, um, our energy network, distributing distribution network operators, and also the DNOs themselves have made some, some, webinars, masterclasses, and things available to help understand how to use their, their data and how to use their tools.

Angus: Has that changed the way that we do energy planning? Absolutely. Um, I think again, speak to, to colleagues in those kinds of departments with a, with a wider view of energy as a whole, as opposed to just transport. And as we get into the future with regard to AI and things like that, and, and, you know, what might AI be able to do for us in terms of in terms of local energy planning, who knows, I think using some of that technology could be really interesting for the future. But yeah, it certainly changed the way that, that I think that we're planning for, for transport, both in terms of cars and, and vehicles, but also in sustainable public and active transport.

Angus: And I'm sure there's lots of other ways in which it's going to really inform how we, how we work and how we plan things for, for future projects and, and almost looking beyond. Net zero carbon as well, you know, beyond 2050 into, into the further into the future. I think that's where, you know, this stuff's going to, going to take another step forward, isn't it?

Angus: Because at the moment I fear that we're, we almost. see that date of, of, of trying to reach net zero by whether it be 2040 whenever as the kind of backstop, but we're not really looking beyond that at the moment. And I wonder what the future beyond that is, whether it's more carbon capture, whether it's, you know, who knows, but, but yeah, certainly going ahead into the future.

Angus: Local area energy planning, working with DNO, working with, with all the data and potentially with ever more advanced computers and AI. Yeah, it's going to be amazing. It's going to be awesome.

Becky: So maybe shifting from that very like future vision, which is exciting and perhaps a little bit unpredictable to the more immediate future, do you have visions for what you're now hoping to do next?

Becky: Or perhaps what you might say to others, others working in, uh, other councils around the UK or Wales, um, who might be listening. Like interested in this and might want to explore, uh, explore the sorts of things that you've been doing further. What would you say to them?

Angus: Yes. So, um, in the immediate future, I'll start, I'll start with that.

Angus: So our, again, our electric vehicle strategy, our, our, um, document that we sort of published out for consultation. And that's due to be sort of adopted, uh, sets out sort of various steps that we're taking over the next two years in terms of electric vehicles. And again, that's within sustainable transport.

Angus: So it's things like Essex County Council is looking to electrify its own vehicle fleet as well. So we'll be starting that process and obviously bidding for this, this government funding to enable that large infrastructure project to happen. With, um, with local electric vehicle infrastructure, we're, um, continuing to sort of push more sustainable and public and active transport and work with our, our partners over in the rail network and Greater Anglia and, and others in doing that in terms of other County councils, I've had the privilege of, of working with people from pretty much all of, of our neighboring authorities in Essex.

Angus: And part of, again, the, the Levi program from the central government is that they've delivered some support through the energy savings trust. And they've set up some, some really helpful forums where staff from different local authorities can, can talk and can share learnings about how we're doing this, this infrastructure planning and how we're doing this project and what the different approaches are in each county council.

Angus: And they are going to be different for various reasons and, and, you know, legitimate reasons, but it's been really interesting talking to people from Suffolk and Cambridgeshire and Hertfordshire and, and, and Southend and Thurrock who are, are a different unitary authority from us at ECC. And learning sort of the stages that they're at and what they're doing, particularly, you know, I remember talking to almost my counterparts that are the equivalent of me from, from Suffolk County Council about their program that they call Plug in Suffolk that was again, and working with local groups, local parish councils to install EV charges that were really sort of locally managed and locally controlled and where prices and tariffs were set locally to really benefit the residents.

Angus: So yeah, I've spoken to lots of other people from county councils and everybody I think is working really hard on this already. What I guess would recommend most strongly is, as I've said really earlier, to, to develop that relationship with your DNO, whether it be, you know, SSEN or, or, or UKPN or whoever else it is to, to start really working with them to make sure that, that they, they're at least aware of what you're trying to do.

Angus: You know, they're aware of how many electric vehicle charge points you're hoping to have based on how many EVs you expect to have. Um, so that they're at least aware of, of how much increased rail usage you're hoping for and, and, um, and how many rail journeys you're trying to facilitate within your strategy.

Angus: Um, and again, I'm sure. People from almost every local authority would already have that connection, but it's really, really worth investing in. And then talking to your neighbors, just like I was, I was saying, it's been facilitated through Levi. I'm, I'm so glad to have met many of the staff that I've met from other county councils, and I've learned really, really important things from them.

Angus: Been some absolute nuggets of gold, um, that have come through those conversations. I remember, you know, a guy from Kent talking us through how they'd done a particular project and they were a bit further ahead than us at the time and it just really helped us to, um, to, to get our head around, you know, particular aspects of our planning.

Angus: So, so yeah, definitely develop that relationship with your DNO and then talk to your neighbors, um, and engage with them almost as stakeholders, like you would with your district and borough and your local um, councils as well, I think, you know, neighbor to neighbor relationships, county to county across those borders can be really important.

Angus: And particularly in terms of EV infrastructure, we kind of need to know where the, where our neighbors are putting the charges just across the border, you know, so we don't sort of end up with areas where there's massive clusters because, because the two authorities haven't really spoken to each other.

Angus: So yeah, yeah, those, those are probably the things I'd recommend most strongly.

Becky: Brilliant. Thank you so much for joining us, Angus. It was great to hear it everything that you're doing in Essex County Council about some of the strategies and about some of your visions for what's next and those kind of hopes and dreams for the future.

Becky: So really, thank you so much for joining

Angus: Thanks for having me. It's been great.

Becky: So big thanks to Angus and to Joe. And you'll find all the relevant links to find out more in the show notes for this episode.

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