Prepared ahead of UKREiiF 2025 by Mike Barratt – Power & Renewables Market Lead
The UK’s energy transition is about to get spatial.
In late 2026, the new National Energy System Operator (NESO) will publish its first Strategic Spatial Energy Plan (SSEP). This groundbreaking national blueprint will map where electricity and hydrogen generation and storage could be located across Great Britain over time.
But here’s the twist: the SSEP won’t name actual project sites. Instead, it will signal the types, volumes, and general locations of infrastructure needed to meet our future energy needs. The specifics—who builds what, where, and how—will be left to the energy market and planning system to figure out.
This opens a critical question for local planning authorities, developers, and communities alike: how do we ensure that national energy goals are not just dropped onto local plans, but delivered through them?
A multi-layered system – But is it aligned?
The SSEP will be joined by NESO’s Centralised Strategic Network Plan (CSNP) and eleven Regional Energy Strategic Plans (RESPs). Together, these documents aim to coordinate the UK’s energy system over the long term, ensuring we decarbonise while meeting growing demand.
Yet there’s a third tier—Local Area Energy Plans (LAEPs)—that falls outside NESO’s remit. These are the responsibility of local governments and communities, offering the opportunity to tailor national energy ambitions to local contexts. The trouble is, most LPAs haven’t developed theirs yet.
Without local plans that proactively identify where and how energy infrastructure can be integrated into communities, the risk is clear: top-down decisions could land in ways that undermine local growth, housing, transport, or regeneration priorities.
We’ve seen this disconnect before. But the scale and pace of the energy transition makes it more urgent—and more visible—than ever.
Rethinking infrastructure: From burden to opportunity
Historically, energy has been treated as something that happens elsewhere—pylons on the skyline, substations behind fences, wires beneath our feet. We consume energy but rarely plan for its production or storage in our own neighbourhoods.
That era is over.
With the emergence of hydrogen hubs, solar farms, battery energy storage systems (BESS), and carbon capture facilities, energy is becoming a land use issue. And that makes it a design issue, a policy issue, and—most of all—a placemaking issue.
At BWB, we’ve long advocated for an integrated approach that brings energy planning into the heart of place-making. In our work on devolution and healthy places, we’ve highlighted how policy, infrastructure, and design must work together to deliver joined-up local outcomes. Energy should be no exception.
Learning from NSIPs: When infrastructure lifts places
Nationally Significant Infrastructure Projects (NSIPs) offer a glimpse of what’s possible when infrastructure does more than meet technical requirements—it adds value to place.
Take CopenHill in Copenhagen—a power plant reimagined as a ski slope, hiking trail, and green roof. Or London’s Brent Cross Town Substation, where collaboration between IF_DO architects and artist Lakwena turned essential infrastructure into a vibrant piece of the public realm.
This ethos of dual-purpose design is precisely what we need in the UK. It aligns with Planning Inspectorate guidance, which calls for NSIPs to demonstrate not only functionality and sustainability, but also social and environmental value. It’s the principle we applied in our work on Long Eaton Town Centre—treating infrastructure not as a bolt-on but as a catalyst for regeneration.
We’ve also demonstrated this with the integration of renewable energy strategies into wider sustainability objectives—showing that you can meet decarbonisation targets and create better places.
The practical challenge: Making space work twice as hard
So, how do we bring this thinking into local energy and development planning?
First, LPAs need to own their space in the energy planning ecosystem. Producing a Local Area Energy Plan isn’t just good practice—it’s a way to retain agency and influence. Communities that proactively map out how much infrastructure they can host and where will be better positioned to negotiate, attract investment, and avoid retrofits that clash with their long-term vision.
Second, we must embed design at the outset. This isn’t about surface-level aesthetics. It’s about asking foundational questions: Can a solar farm double as a nature reserve? Can a hydrogen hub incorporate training centres or job spaces? Can substations contribute to civic identity?
We’ve already begun exploring these questions in our insights on green hydrogen and electrolyser capacity planning, where we examine how infrastructure can serve industrial users, support local supply chains, and unlock co-located uses.
And finally, we must take a whole-place approach. This means connecting energy planning to housing, transport, health, environment, and economy—not treating it as a standalone silo. As the Planning Inspectorate’s design guidance rightly puts it, good design “extends far beyond aesthetic considerations” to include climate, people, place, and value.
Countdown to delivery
NESO’s SSEP is due by the end of 2026. But decisions about land, projects, and policy are happening now.
The next 18 months are critical. LPAs that start thinking spatially about energy now will avoid being boxed in later. Developers that consider energy as part of masterplanning will secure faster consents and stronger community support. And policymakers who embrace the place-based logic of infrastructure will be better able to deliver a just, resilient, and ambitious net zero transition.
The real question: Whose vision wins?
We’re moving from a world where energy infrastructure is hidden away to one where it’s a visible and necessary part of our landscapes.
The real question isn’t whether energy infrastructure will be built—it’s whether we want it to be imposed or designed.
At BWB, we believe energy can—and should—be part of the story we tell about better places. If we treat infrastructure as an opportunity for creativity, collaboration, and community benefit, we can make the energy transition a source of civic pride, not local resistance.
As we head into UKREiiF, the invitation is clear:
Stop thinking of energy infrastructure as someone else’s problem and start planning it as part of the places we all call home.