Regional Energy Strategic Planning (RESP)
In early-2025, NESO became responsible for producing Regional Energy Strategic Plans (RESPs) for England, Scotland and Wales. The plans will help ensure that local areas get the energy infrastructure they need to meet local net zero and growth ambitions, and help communities to access reliable, clean and affordable energy. The RESPs will form part of NESO’s wider strategic energy planning activities, ensuring a joined-up approach between national, regional and local levels.
About RESP
Ofgem awarded NESO the RESP role in November 2023. Following their public consultation in July 2024, Ofgem published its final decision on the details of the RESP role on 2 April 2025. The RESP framework policy sets out the scope of the RESP role and what NESO and its stakeholders will be doing to enable the development of RESPs across Great Britain.
Watch our March 2025 webinar ‘An introduction to Regional Energy Strategic Planning’ for further information about NESO’s RESP role.
The RESP role
The RESP role has been set up to develop regional plans that span across all energy vectors – electricity, gas, and hydrogen networks – as part of one integrated energy system.
These different energy systems are currently planned separately. By moving to a joined-up whole-system approach, this will ensure investment is targeted where it’s needed, and that progress towards net zero can be accelerated.
RESP Frequently Asked Questions
The RESP team has put together a bank of frequently asked questions about the Regional Energy Strategic Plans. This document will be added to and updated regularly, so please continue to check back on this page. All information is correct as of the publication date, and may be subject to future updates and changes.
Round 1 RESP Forums Write-up
Read about Round 1 of the RESP Forums, held during March-April 2025. It includes details of the meetings, what participants and NESO said, and what we (NESO) will do next.
June 2025 Webinar
Download the slides and watch our latest webinar (June 2025) ‘An introduction to Regional Energy Strategic Planning’, to learn more about NESO’s RESP role. This follows the first webinar, held in March 2025.
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NESO will be producing RESPs for the nations and regions defined by Ofgem. These are set out in Ofgem’s RESP Framework Policy decision - April 2025 as:
The detailed boundaries for Scotland, Wales and the nine English regions are available in the RESP Framework Policy decision. |
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Ofgem has set out that the NESO should follow a set of principles to guide it's work; these are to be: place-based; whole system; vision-led; proactive; transparent and collaborative; and fair.
By being place-based the RESP role will help ensure that the views of local customers are central to the way we plan for Great Britain’s net zero energy system.
For the first time, the RESPs will ensure a joined-up whole-system approach is taken to planning the energy infrastructure local areas need.
Bespoke visions will underpin the development of the bespoke plans for each region and nation. A proactive approach will include listening to local customers and stakeholders to ensure that a wide range of priorities, insights and data are used to inform regional plans.
NESO will be responsible for developing a methodology, setting out how the RESPs will be produced. Our intention is to publish the draft methodology for consultation in late 2025.
The list below sets out our key milestones for the first three years of our new RESP role. It's based on the proposals to date from Ofgem and is subject to further development once NESO formally takes on the RESP role in early 2025.
| 2025 | 2026 | 2027 |
|---|---|---|
| Q1 - RESP Ofgem policy decision | Q1 - tRESP output published | Late 2027 - RESPs published |
| Q2 - RESP Forums and Working Groups established | Q2 - RESP Strategic Boards established | |
| Q3 - tRESP pathways consultation | Q2 - Final RESP methodology published | |
| Q4 - RESP methodology consultation |
The RESP role will be delivered as part of NESO's wider strategic energy planning (SEP) activities.
These include the Strategic Spatial Energy Plan, Centralised Strategic Network Plan, and Future Energy Scenarios.
For more information about how they interact, see our SEP Summary document.
These pages are based on Ofgem’s RESP Policy Framework, published 2nd April 2025. This is Ofgem’s final decision on the RESP role for NESO to deliver in collaboration with local and regional stakeholders.
Useful RESP documents and publications:
- April 2022 – Call for Input: Future of local energy institutions and governance
- March 2023 – Consultation: Future of local energy institutions and governance
- November 2023 – Decision on future of local energy institutions and governance
- July 2024 – RESP consultation
- October 2024 – NESO consultation response
- April 2025 – Ofgem policy framework
- May 2025 - tRESP Engagement Transparency Statement
To contact the RESP Team at NESO, please email [email protected]
As NESO, we’re committed to ensuring the views of stakeholders are at the heart of our work to plan the future energy system. As part of our approach, we are developing a number of routes to enable us to collaborate with stakeholders on our RESP activities.
RESP Forums
We established RESP Forums in March 2025. Forums are open to anyone with an interest in the energy system in their local area, with a particular focus on our RESP role and the regional energy strategic plans we’ll be producing.
By joining your local forum, you’ll:
- Learn more about NESO and our RESP role
- Meet the RESP team for your region/nation
- Share the energy issues that are most important to your local area
- Play a key role in ensuring your area gets the electricity and gas distribution infrastructure it needs to grow and decarbonise
- Contribute to the Transitional RESP (or tRESP) project, which is focused on supporting the development of the electricity distribution network operator (DNO) business plans for their next investment period, 2028-33, also known as RIIO-ED3
- Contribute to the methodology for how we’ll produce the RESPs, starting in 2026
Forums round 1 – March/April 2025
The slides from the Forums are available to download
Forums round 2 – July/August 2025
Our summer Forums will take place on the following dates; to find out more and register, please read our Forums news article:
- Scotland - 26 June
- Central England – 7 July
- London – 7 July
- North East, Yorkshire and Humber – 8 July
- West Midlands – 8 July
- South East – 9 July
- South West – 9 July
- East Midlands – 10 July
- East of England – 10 July
- Wales – 10 July
Forums round 3 – October/November 2025
Further details to follow.
Forums round 4 – February/March 2026
Further details to follow.