Last year we published our Emerging Thinking and invited customers and stakeholders to give feedback on the proposals for our next business plan. Your thousands of responses helped shape how our business will look and work over much of the next decade, and we thank everyone who took part.

Digitalisation strategy and action plan
We have since published our digitalisation strategy and action plan (DSAP), which contains more detail about the initiatives we believe will help digitally enable our business. In future versions we plan to report progress against this plan so that everyone will be able to see what progress we are making with these initiatives. Together, these form a vital part of our overall business plan: 

Our DSAP focuses on eight key pillars. The first four are about digitalising our energy network, the second four are about developing a digital business.

We plan to digitalise our energy network by:

• promoting data transparency by collecting and sharing energy system data consistently and promoting grid efficiencies and compliance;
• enabling data analytics and insights to improve system resilience and reliability by promoting greater transparency through sharing data across the broader energy network;
• improving network operations through utilising emerging technology, data and digital capabilities; and
• digitalising the energy system using digital devices, advanced communications and interconnected systems to drive real-time decision making.

We plan to develop our digital business by:

• transforming customer experiences by better understanding the customer journey from all perspectives and touchpoints, and adapting and personalising our services to specific consumer needs;
• improving our technology capabilities to drive down IT costs and risk from unsupported information technology, while realising future digital opportunities;
• leveraging intelligent automation to reduce manual tasks, speed up processes and refocus effort on value-added activities that boost productivity and efficiency and benefit our customers; and
• enabling a digital workplace to speed up our working processes and allowing employees to work together more effectively, share knowledge, and gain greater collective insights.

Share your feedback
Before we finalise our digital strategy and action plan, we want to know what you think. This is your chance to review our plans, see what has changed, and give us your considered view: 

• What do you think of our level of ambition?
• Are there areas for inclusion that you think we haven’t considered?
• Do you think this is a strong proposal or are there weak spots?

Click here to read our DSAP and please email your comments and questions to: yourpowergrid@northernpowergrid.com

by Paul Fitton, Head of Information Systems, Northern Powergrid