User Journey — Local Authority Use Case
Leah works in the Housing Team at a Local Authority and is Project Manager for a community retrofit project. She’s good with office software and comfortable with using analytical software but not very technical. �She’s been asked to work with colleagues in Planning to develop a plan for fitting Low Carbon Technologies (LCTs) across a large estate. It will replace gas boilers and electric storage heaters with domestic heat pumps and solar PV arrays. It will also introduce on-street public EV charging points to encourage adoption. �Leah needs to be able to understand how Local Authority decisions will impact the available capacity (DNO) and the implications of any transmission constraints.
The service is now fully set up and ready to use. Leah can now add the data into her analysis to understand the impact on the DNO. She can see that installing the solar PV array improves the DNO available capacity, while non smart EV charge points reduce it.
After going through the internal procurement process, the service proves very easy to set up, with an online tutorial that quickly teaches her how to search for and access the information she wants to be able to work with. There’s no need to be a techie, and the the range of information available to her is impressive.
Leah has been working with Community Energy Groups and has heard about a service that allows Local Authorities to understand the impact from retrofitting LCTs. Her boss, the Director of Planning, is deeply involved in their Local Energy Plan and has emphasised the need for a smooth path to integrate with the local DNO in order to reduce the time it will take to achieve the retrofit. Leah finds out about the service and is pleased to discover that a fixed one-year licence is £4,950 (within her budget sign-off limit).
One of the Shared🔒 datasets is provided by the Local Authority’s Transport Department. Leah is asked to provide her consent to the service provider so that they can request access and confirm to Transport that it is being used to provide a service to the Local Authority, at the request of the Planning Team. This is a quick process that proves the request is authentic, confirms the data required, the purpose for sharing and the duration.
Leah’s range of modelled scenarios demonstrate outcomes not only to the DNO but also forecast expected improvement in air quality.
This is crucial in the decision making process, discussions with the DNO, and with citizen engagement. As a result, the retrofit proceeds faster than previously possible, while the community feels positively involved in the decision making process.
Leah starts by setting the area they are working on (the LSOA*) and searches for the energy data she needs. The search is undertaken by an advanced ‘Knowledge Graph’ that crawls the metadata, understands the nature of the data and its relationship to other data sets. �The search is easy and intuitive to use. She selects 8 data sets. Some are Open, others are Shared.
🔒
These are Shared Data sets, only accessible by the service provider, which is licenced by the regulator. Because it’s a Local Authority request through an approved Service Provider, access is granted.
It is secure, and control is through the Open Energy Governance Platform. This ensures that only authorised service providers can access the data, provides the control point over the specific datasets, signposts the API endpoints, and allows the data provider to recognise that it is a legitimate request from an authenticated service provider to the Local Authority.
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Open Energy: Local Authority Use Case
Energy Data
Energy Data Service Provider
(e.g. MEDapps)
Aggregated Smart Meter Data �(e.g. for an apartment block)
Installed LCT performance data at communal level (e.g. solar panels on an apartment block)
Public EV charging points performance profiles
Domestic Low Carbon Technology
Air or Ground Source Heat Pump Capacity
Domestic Low Carbon Technology
Off Street Electric Vehicle Charge Point Capacity
National Grid (etc.) Transmission Constraints
DNO Primary Substation Head Room Available
Public Low Carbon Transport Hub Capacity
Lower Super Output Layer ID (LSOA)
A Local Authority (LA) is undertaking a retrofit with LCTs on a housing estate. They want to understand the variables and impact on DNO ‘headroom’ and any transmission constraints as they roll-out solar PV, public EV charging points, etc. This will inform the prioritisation and decision-making process. The LA turns to an Energy Data Service Provider (EDSP) that provides this specific service.
The LA contracts with the EDSP and searches for the energy data it requires. This service allows the LA to use data to test different variables, such as equipment type, performance, time, etc. In this way it can plan effectively and provide reliable information to the DNO.
The EDSP has been authorised by Ofgem* (as the sector regulator) and can access energy data under an Open Energy Standard preemptive licence. This is enabled by the Open Energy Governance Platform (OEGP).
This uses the same proven data sharing infrastructure and approach as Open Banking. With the LA having identified the data required, the EDSP requests access under the terms of its licence. The OEGP ensures that only authorised service providers can access the data, provides the control point over the specific datasets, signposts the API endpoints, and allows the data provider to recognise that it is a legitimate request from an authenticated EDSP.
The EDSP accesses a distributed web of energy data. Data is drawn from different specialist providers, each of which maintains their own data (and metadata), ensuring that it is up-to-date and meets the conditions of the Open Energy Standard.
Local Authorities delivering a Local Energy Plan must be able to understand the impact of Low Carbon Technologies and whether retrofitting or new installations would be achievable without investment by the local Distribution Network Operator. With the rapid pace of change, understanding how a specific retrofit sits within an overall regional plan, or where investment will be required over time, is critical both for the Local Authority and the DNO. This lack of certainty can cause significant delays to the rollout of retrofitted LCTs.
* Hypothetical, and for illustrative purposes only. An industry “scheme” is an alternative approach.
Local Authority
Transport
Planning
Unless otherwise stated, these slides are licensed
under Creative Commons attribution licence.
Local Authority Use Case - Current Situation
Aggregated Smart Meter Data �(e.g. for an apartment block)
Installed LCT performance data at communal level (e.g. solar panels on an apartment block)
Public EV charging points performance profiles
Domestic Low Carbon Technology
Air or Ground Source Heat Pump Capacity
Domestic Low Carbon Technology
Off Street Electric Vehicle Charge Point Capacity
National Grid (etc.) Transmission Constraints
DNO Primary Substation Head Room Available
Public Low Carbon Transport Hub Capacity
Lower Super Output Layer ID (LSOA)
Challenges of a fragmented ecosystem:
Local Authority
Transport
Planning
Unless otherwise stated, these slides are licensed
under Creative Commons attribution licence.
Local Authority Use Case: Target State
Energy Data
Local Authority
Transport
Planning
Aggregated Smart Meter Data
Low Carbon Technology Historical Performance Data
EV charging points performance
Domestic Heat Pump Capacity
Electric Vehicle Charge Point Capacity
NG ESO Transmission Constraints
DNO Primary Substation Head Room
Public Low Carbon Transport Hub Capacity
Lower Super Output Layer ID (LSOA)
Open Energy
Search and Access Control
Data licencing and consent�(background service)
Find / search data
Establish permissions (live service)
Benefits
Energy Data Service Providers
(MEDapps)
Unless otherwise stated, these slides are licensed
under Creative Commons attribution licence.