Scottish and Southern Electricity Networks (SSEN) Distribution has partnered with electricity distribution companies from the UK, Australia, Italy, and Japan to revolutionise and support communities to engage with electricity grids of the future.

Launching at COP26, the University of Oxford-led initiative will bring together electricity networks and community energy groups from across the world to remove barriers to delivering net zero at a local level.

Founding partners SSEN, part of the SSE group, Ausgrid and the Enel Group, through the founding and research partner the Enel Foundation, have joined with the University of Oxford to launch the International Community for Local Smart Grids (ICLSG). This initiative will see community energy groups and electricity networks share key learnings from innovation projects, facilitate discussions around challenges and support a collaborative transition to a decarbonised future.

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Electricity networks, and the shift to smart grids, will be fundamental in achieving a secure, cost-effective, net zero future, and in realising the ambitions of COP26. The first-of-its-kind five-year knowledge sharing partnership will explore the relationship between communities and how they engage with smart grids from Oxford to Rome, Sydney to Tokyo.

Chris Burchell, Managing Director Of SSEN Distribution, said: "Achieving net zero is a global challenge that will be delivered locally through people and their communities. Electricity networks have a critical enabling role in making opportunities accessible and easy to understand. From ensuring electric vehicles can connect, to supporting the electrification of heating, to helping customers become electricity generators of their own; we're planning now for how we'll power communities to decarbonise in a smart, secure and fair manner at a time they need and wish to.

"Whilst project partners experience different climates and cultures, we are facing shared challenges and as we'll see at COP26, the only way to tackle the climate emergency and take action is through collaboration.

"The International Community for Local Smart Grids will take the lessons we are each learning locally and share these globally and I'm incredibly excited to be working with Ausgrid and the Enel Foundation alongside other partners to deliver a truly innovative approach to help the communities we serve access their net zero futures."

The partnership will be launched to a global audience at the UK Presidency Pavilion at COP26.