Innovation and Collaboration - Vattenfall IDNO - 2024 Roundup

As an IDNO with a keen focus on supporting renewable energy and carbon reduction we are proud to have supported a wide range of electrification projects, and adopted numerous electrical assets which are helping businesses cut their carbon footprints.

We have now energised numerous projects and have a strong pipeline for 2025.

The energised projects include supporting two of Aldi’s supermarkets, and two Volvo car showrooms with power for EV charging, new grid connections for High Point Academy in Wednesbury and Merrit's Brook Primary Academy in Birmingham, power for electric busses at Fulwell Bus Garage in Twickenham, powering Europe's largest river source heat pump at Clockhouse Farm in Kent which is reducing the CO₂ of UK tomato production, a large grid-scale battery in Mannington to help balance the grid, a new grid connection for Oxwash, the world's first industrial-sized carbon-neutral laundry, and power for whiskey production at Rosebank Distillery in Falkirk.

We also continue to expand our team and have welcomed several new colleagues this year including Ed Forbes as Legal, Data Privacy and Regulatory Compliance Adviser, and Louise Mortell as Land Consents Manager, who have helped speed up our project delivery by handling numerous complex contractual and land-rights issues on behalf of our clients, as well as Ebba Rydholm, who joined us as a Project Manager from Vattenfall in Sweden.

We’ve also expanded our partnerships with Independent Connection Providers and are proud to have worked with more than 20 of the leading ICPs in the UK, who have delivered some amazing work throughout the year. These collaborations are critical to our mission and we strive to support our ICPs in as many ways as possible with one of our ICP partners commenting

I really appreciate that I’m able to pick up the phone to you, get clear answers to emails and your general 'can-do' attitude. It’s a real pleasure to work with you!

So, we’re making strong progress, but our work is far from over. Under the Paris climate agreement, the UK needs to reduce its emissions by 68% by 2030 compared with 1990 levels - a key step towards achieving net zero by 2050. But, in July this year, the UK's independent climate advisers, the Climate Change Committee (CCC), warned that only a third of emissions cuts needed to meet this goal were backed up by credible policies.

At the COP29 climate summit in Azerbaijan, Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer announced a new target to cut the UK's annual emissions by 81% versus 1990 levels by 2035. Energy Secretary Ed Miliband has set out a detailed plan for achieving our clean power targets, including “cleaning up the dysfunctional grid” by building the necessary grid infrastructure to connect as much clean power as possible. The grid connection queue is currently managed on a ‘first come, first served’ basis and action is needed to accelerate the projects that are critical to the goal.

At Vattenfall IDNO we are well versed in the challenges of securing timely grid connections and are constantly working to help developers get their grid connection applications approved. To this end, in 2024, we launched a new Grid Connections Consultancy service through which we help developers pinpoint the power available near their chosen locations using our Grid Capacity Insights Platform – a new tool developed by the team which details the available headroom, as well as any upstream and downstream grid constraints for any location in the UK.

By supporting developers in this way, and preparing grid applications with the highest chances of approval, we have been able to help a growing number of developers avoid grid connection delays and accelerate connection timeframes.

Plus, if a consultancy client goes on to work with us to connect their project we are able to waive the fees associated with the consultancy work meaning that developers receive our consultancy for zero cost, an innovation which has been very well received!

Innovation and collaboration are often overused words but at Vattenfall IDNO we have seen the benefits of both in 2024 and we look forward to collaborating with even more people, at many more companies, and finding more ways to innovate in 2025 to help accelerate UK electrification.

We wish all our partners and clients well for the festive season – we look forward to working with you in 2025.