An integrated framework for long-term distribution grid planning under uncertainty
Effective long-term planning uses insights about possible futures to inform decisions taken today about how distribution grids should develop. This ISGAN Framework integrates five planning phases, from strategic foresight to implementation; three enabling conditions that underpin effective planning across all five phases; and key actor groups whose interdependent decisions shape planning outcomes. It gives actors a common reference point for building shared understanding and developing more forward-looking, proactive, adaptive and collaborative planning practices.
How to use the Framework
A shared reference for dialogue and reflection
The Framework can be used flexibly across different national and institutional contexts. It helps structure dialogue in workshops and coordination forums and provides a shared reference for planning and policy processes. The phases follow a logical progression, and planning remains iterative. New information, implementation experience and changing conditions may lead actors to revisit earlier assumptions and decisions.
Use the Framework to ask:
- Which possible futures and critical uncertainties should we prepare for?
- Are the right actors and perspectives involved early enough?
- Are policy direction, local development and grid planning based on aligned assumptions?
- Are roles, information needs and decision points clear?
- Have we considered reinforcement, better use of existing infrastructure, flexibility and smart-grid solutions?
- Can plans be adapted and decisions revisited as conditions change?
Select any part of the interactive Framework to explore the planning phases, enabling conditions and actors:
Phases of
Long-Term Planning
Enabling Conditions
The three enabling conditions support every phase of long-term planning. They are closely connected: governance shapes actors' mandates and incentives; collaboration connects their knowledge and decisions; and information and knowledge infrastructure provides a shared basis for action.
Enabling Conditions
The three enabling conditions underpin every phase of long-term planning. They are closely connected: the Legal and Governance Framework shapes actors’ mandates and incentives; Actor Collaboration connects their knowledge and decisions; and Information and Knowledge Infrastructure provides a shared basis for planning and action.
No single actor has all the information, authority or capacity needed to plan future distribution grids alone. Distribution grid operators and owners understand network capacity, constraints and investment needs. Local and regional authorities hold knowledge about spatial development and local priorities. Policymakers and regulators shape the direction, rules and incentives within which planning takes place. Other actors across the wider ecosystem contribute further knowledge, investment decisions, resources and perspectives.
Collaboration concerns the relationships, dialogue and joint working processes between these actors. Coordination concerns the alignment of their interdependent plans and decisions. Stronger collaboration can support better coordination, but dialogue alone is not enough: actors also need clear responsibilities, usable information, appropriate mandates and processes that connect discussion to decisions and follow-up.
Effective collaboration arrangements combine structure with relational capacity. They may include formal coordination requirements, recurring forums, shared scenarios and agreed decision points, alongside trust, continuity, mutual understanding and the ability to translate between technical, regulatory and place-based perspectives. The appropriate arrangements will depend on the institutional context and the issue being addressed.
This may include:
- Early and continuous exchange before plans become fixed
- Shared scenarios, assumptions and planning priorities
- Clear roles, expectations and feedback loops
- Coordination platforms with defined purposes and outputs
- Facilitation and intermediary functions to ensure effective dialogue
- Shared language, mutual understanding and continuity over time
- Transparent processes for addressing disagreements and trade-offs
Legal and governance arrangements define the institutional conditions within which grid planning takes place. They determine who is responsible for which decisions, what grid operators and owners are expected and permitted to do, how investments are assessed and approved, and how costs, benefits and risks are allocated.
Supportive frameworks can enable planning to move beyond responding only to confirmed demand. They can create appropriate conditions for anticipatory investment, adaptive planning and consideration of flexibility, digitalisation and other innovative solutions alongside conventional reinforcement. At the same time, transparent criteria and accountability are needed to protect consumers and avoid inefficient investment.
Governance also connects decisions across levels and sectors. National or regional objectives may shape future grid needs, while many practical developments emerge through local decisions on land use, housing, mobility, industry and infrastructure. The responsible institutions differ between countries, but mechanisms are needed to translate strategic direction into coordinated planning and implementation.
This may include:
- Clear roles, mandates and planning obligations
- Stable and transparent investment and cost-recovery arrangements
- Appropriate allocation of costs, benefits and risks
- Incentives to consider anticipatory, flexible and innovative solutions
- Transparent processes for prioritisation, approval, permitting and consultation
- Rules for data sharing and coordination across actors, systems and governance levels
Information and knowledge infrastructure includes the data, scenarios, tools, methods, standards and expertise needed for forward-looking planning. As distribution grids become more complex, historical demand data alone cannot provide a sufficient picture of future needs. Planning increasingly depends on information about electrification, distributed generation, storage, flexibility, customer behaviour, climate risks and wider development.
The objective is not simply to collect more data. Information must be timely, trusted, understandable and relevant to the decisions being made. Different actors require different levels of detail: grid planners need technical information for network analysis, while public authorities and other actors may need capacity and constraint information translated into forms that can support spatial, policy or investment decisions.
Information exchange also requires governance. Actors need clarity about what information should be shared, by whom, when, in which format and under what conditions. Accessibility and interoperability must be balanced with privacy, commercial confidentiality and critical-infrastructure security. Knowledge and skills are equally important: actors must be able to interpret information, understand uncertainty and use appropriate planning methods.
This may include:
- Shared and regularly updated scenarios and planning assumptions
- Data on grid capacity, constraints, connection needs and asset condition
- Information on local development, demand, generation and flexibility
- Common definitions, data standards and interoperable systems
- Modelling, assessment and decision-support tools
- Clear data ownership, access, quality and security arrangements
- Skills for foresight, analysis, knowledge translation and collaborative planning
Key Actor Groups
Many actors influence long-term distribution grid planning. The Framework focuses on three groups whose formal responsibilities and interdependent decisions are particularly important:
- Policymakers and Regulators
- Local and Regional Authorities
- Distribution Grid Operators and Owners
These groupings describe broad functions rather than one universal institutional model. Responsibilities, organisational structures and ownership arrangements vary significantly between countries and may overlap.
The three groups also operate within a much wider ecosystem that includes transmission system operators, grid users, energy producers and suppliers, aggregators, flexibility providers, technology companies, other infrastructure operators, researchers, investors, communities and civil society.
Explore the roles of the three focal actor groups, their critical relationships and how they interact with the wider planning ecosystem.
The Five Phases of Long-Term Planning
The five phases show how actors can move from exploring possible futures to implementing grid-development solutions. In practice, the process is iterative rather than strictly linear: new information and implementation experience can lead actors to revisit earlier phases.
Provides: Shared scenarios and strategic intelligence.
Strategic foresight opens the planning process before specific solutions or investments are fixed. It explores how technological, economic, political, environmental and societal developments could affect distribution grids over the long term.
The purpose is not to predict one exact future. It is to develop a set of plausible futures, examine critical uncertainties and identify developments that actors should monitor. Involving different perspectives helps reveal dependencies and assumptions that may otherwise remain invisible.
This may include:
- Horizon scanning and analysis of trends and emerging issues
- Identification of key drivers and critical uncertainties
- Development of scenarios and possible system pathways
- Exploration of future demand, generation and flexibility needs
- Dialogue with actors holding relevant technical, policy, market and place-based knowledge
- Identification of indicators that can signal when conditions are changing
The resulting scenarios and strategic intelligence provide a shared foundation for later choices. They should be
revisited as new evidence becomes available.
Provides: Strategic guidance for subsequent planning and assessment.
Strategic direction turns insights about possible futures into choices about what the grid should enable and which principles should guide its development. It connects long-term policy and societal objectives with the realities of the power system and different places.
Actors may not begin with identical priorities. This phase helps clarify where their objectives align, where trade-offs remain and which matters require explicit political, regulatory or organisational decisions. It also establishes the basis for judging development options in later phases.
This may include:
- Defining long-term objectives and planning principles
- Aligning grid development with energy, climate, resilience and development priorities
- Clarifying priorities where capacity, resources or time are constrained
- Determining how affordability, reliability, sustainability and risk should be balanced
- Establishing criteria for assessing future development options
- Clarifying responsibilities and strategic decision points.
The result is not necessarily a single document. It is a sufficiently clear and shared direction to guide the
development and comparison of concrete options.
Provides: A portfolio of long-term grid-development options.
This phase identifies how anticipated grid needs and constraints could be addressed over time. It connects scenarios and strategic priorities with technical knowledge about network capacity, asset condition, system performance and available solutions.
Development options may involve optimising existing infrastructure, conventional reinforcement, new network assets, digitalisation, smart operation, storage, demand response, flexible connections or other market-based and technical solutions. These approaches are not necessarily alternatives: a robust development pathway may combine several of them or introduce them in stages.
This may include:
- Identifying future capacity needs, constraints and reinvestment requirements
- Exploring different locations, timings and sequences for intervention
- Assessing the technical feasibility of potential solutions
- Considering reinforcement, optimisation, flexibility and smart-grid options
- Coordinating with transmission, spatial and other infrastructure planning
- Developing staged or adaptable options where future needs remain uncertain
The aim is to create a credible range of options for assessment – not to assume from the outset that every need requires conventional network expansion.
Provides: Evidence and decisions for investment and implementation.
Grid-development options can perform differently across technical, economic, environmental and societal dimensions. This phase provides a structured basis for comparing them, understanding their trade-offs and deciding which options, or combination of options, should proceed.
Assessment criteria should reflect the strategic direction established earlier. Depending on the context, these may include reliability, affordability, resilience, environmental impacts, social effects, deliverability, flexibility and wider system value. The choice and weighting of criteria can materially affect the outcome and should therefore be transparent.
This may include:
- Technical and economic analysis
- Cost-benefit and multi-criteria assessment
- Lifecycle, environmental and societal-impact analysis
- Resilience and risk assessment
- Testing options against different scenarios
- Pilots or proof-of-concept testing for innovative solutions
- Consideration of how costs, benefits and risks are distributed
- Transparent documentation of trade-offs, assumptions and decision rationales.
Under uncertainty, the preferred choice may be a staged or adaptable pathway rather than one fixed solution.
Clear decision rights and legitimate processes are especially important when interests or priorities conflict.
Provides: Implemented solutions and learning that strengthen the distribution grid.
Implementation includes the practical steps required to deliver the selected development pathway. Depending on the solution, this may involve financing, detailed design, permitting, procurement, construction, digital-system deployment, contracting for flexibility services, testing and commissioning.
Coordination remains essential. Delivery depends on public authorities, grid operators and owners, technology and service providers, supply chains, affected communities and other infrastructure operators. Standards, interoperability, cybersecurity, workforce capabilities, public acceptance and access to materials can all influence whether solutions are delivered successfully and on time.
This may include:
- Securing financing and regulatory approval
- Detailed technical, digital or market design
- Permitting, land access and stakeholder engagement
- Procurement and supply-chain management
- Construction, deployment, testing and commissioning
- Implementation of standards, interoperability and cybersecurity requirements
- Transition into operation, maintenance and performance monitoring
- Evaluation of outcomes against the assumptions and objectives established earlier
Learning from implementation should feed back into foresight, strategic direction and future development options. This closes the planning loop and helps the system adapt as conditions change.
