Regional Energy Strategic Planning (RESP)

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.

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.

View 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
• February 2025 - Scope of the transitional Regional Energy Strategic Plan
• April 2025 – Ofgem policy framework
• May 2025 - tRESP Engagement Transparency Statement
• January 2026 - NESO transitional Regional Energy Strategic plan (tRESP)
   

Useful RESP contacts

To contact the RESP Team at NESO, please email [email protected]

If you have a query relating to a specific RESP Nation or Region, please contact the relevant team directly:

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.

Help to shape areas of the RESP Methodology - 2 to 16 March.

NESO is taking the next important step in developing the Regional Energy Strategic Plans (RESPs) Methodology. 

Since closing the Methodology Consultation in January 2026, we have been developing further detail on specific areas of the methodology. We anticipated this would be necessary when we published the consultation in November 2025, and had this view confirmed by Ofgem and stakeholders through their consultation responses. 

We have undertaken work to provide additional clarity and technical depth on the below areas of the RESP Methodology: 

1. Spatial context for gas and biomethane 
2. Whole system optimisation 
3. Specification of strategic investment need 

We expect that the subject matter will be of particular interest to organisations and individuals with a more detailed level of knowledge and experience of energy system planning. 

However, we welcome feedback from all our customers and stakeholders, and we have made the document, feedback platform and webinars publicly available. Visit our new website page where you can find the new published documents and information on how to respond.

We are also inviting customers and stakeholders to provide feedback through the following channels: 

Read more about the priority areas in our NESO News article.

transitional RESP (tRESP)

The transitional RESP (tRESP) is the first publication in the journey towards transforming and improving local energy infrastructure, developing bespoke plans for Scotland, Wales and nine English regions. tRESP has been designed as a bridge between the current approach to energy distribution network planning and the full RESP approach which will be in place by end of 2028.

In September 2025, NESO launched its tRESP Consultation, which ran for six weeks. This plan – launched on 30 January 2026 - forms a key part of NESO’s new responsibilities as strategic energy planner for the whole of Great Britain.

Find out more

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

RESP Round 1 (March-April 2025)
View report

RESP Round 2 (July 2025)
View slides
View report

RESP Round 3 (October 2025)
View slides
View report

Forums round 4 (February 2026)

The slides from Forums round 4 will be available to download soon