Northern Powergrid’s cellular trial tracks exemplar substation

Whitley Bay Big Local Community DSO, part of North Tyneside Big Local, is taking part in a groundbreaking energy trial with Northern Powergrid (NPg), designed to give communities more control over how electricity is used and shared locally. This is part of a new initiative from Northern Powergrid called the ‘cellular approach’.

The local electricity system is a “cell” - a group of homes, businesses, and energy users all connected to the same electricity substation. By focusing on the local cell level, the community DSO can manage how energy is produced, used, and shared more efficiently right where it’s needed.

Image: Electric Places

For example, using local solar power more efficiently, shifting when devices like electric vehicle chargers or home batteries operate, and reducing the need for expensive upgrades to the electricity distribution grid.

NPg’s exemplar distributed network model illustrating the cellular approach.

The aim is to test how communities like Whitley Bay can play an active role in making our energy system smarter and fairer, whether that is through directly managing how energy is used in the area, or simply by sharing data that helps the wider system run more smoothly. Through this trial, the DSO will learn how people want to be involved, how much flexibility they are comfortable with, and how local benefits (like lower bills or more community investment) can be delivered.

The “cell” or cellular approach is called Community DSO (Community Distribution System Operation).

Northern Powergrid manages the electricity network that powers everyday life amongst more than 8 million other people across 3.9 million homes and businesses in the North East, Yorkshire and northern Lincolnshire. Northern Powergrid is also the owner, sponsor, financer and operator of this Community DSO innovation trial. 

This Northern Powergrid Community DSO project is a five year £14.5m Ofgem-funded Network Innovation Competition (NIC) study being tested in the North East, Yorkshire and North Lincolnshire of England.

In partnership also with Ofgem, LCP Delta and TNEI, the ‘Community DSO’ trial is aiming to regularly disseminate learnings to guide and empower many communities to manage their own local energy systems more efficiently.

During the trials, the DSO will be testing how communities can generate, use and share their own electricity through optimising flexible energy assets (e.g. low carbon heating systems such as electric car chargers, solar panels and battery storage) and help better manage power flows locally. This is part of the UK’s whole energy system plan to enable the sustainable electrification (and energy security) of the economy, and for government to build a total energy system that can bring down bills for households and businesses, whilst deliver Net Zero promises.

Planning for the Whitley Bay Community DSO trial began in September 2024, and the trial will run until September 2026. Active engagement with customers, energy monitoring and management of local residents and small business properties will started in autumn last year.

The Community Distribution System Operation (CDSO) trial aims to transform local energy management by integrating smart technologies, market-driven incentives, and community engagement.

The featured graphic shows how microgrids can really help businesses with their energy demands and costs, potentially delivering energy savings of between 30% and 60%.

By participating, customers are helping to optimise Whitley Bay’s community energy use by making better use of local solar generation, energy storage batteries and EV chargers as well as: increased substation capacity, allowing more homes to install low-carbon technologies (LCTs), reducing the need for costly grid upgrades by managing local energy flows; delivering financial and community benefits and rewarding participants for their role in improving energy efficiency.

The experiment is led by the Condor Consortium, which includes: • Consortium Lead Partner: Electric Places (Community Interest Company) • Community Partner: Whitley Bay Big Local (CIO) • Technical Partners: CleanWatts, EV.energy, Nodes, SMPnet.

Customers have agreed to have a free Smart Hub (Kiome home energy management system), which tracks their energy use installed in their property in exchange for a fee - £75, then £25 per quarter between September 2025 and September 2026.