What are we doing?

Our Data Portal is a single point of access to all the data Scottish and Southern Electricity Networks publishes. This catalogue of data will bring visibility to our network assets, their location, their usage, and their performance.

We are aiming to engage with all our data consumers from local authorities, our supply chain, flexibility providers, energy suppliers and anyone with an interest in achieving net zero.

Our data spans both of our licence areas across the North of Scotland and South of England.

Our electricity distribution network delivers power to over 3.9 million homes and businesses across the diverse and unique geographies of the north of Scotland and central southern England.

We have built our data portal on CKAN allowing us to display our data in a user-friendly environment and allow our data consumers to use data in a meaningful way. CKAN has been used extensively by our Open Data Peers and Partners and allows us to tailor our portal, to serve you.

What's next?

We are currently working on migrating existing data flows and resources from current publication location on our website to be published directly to our Data Portal. We are looking to supplement many of our data assets with additional resources, machine-readable format, and the ability to consume data assets via API. We will use our digital strategy and action plan stakeholder events to gather feedback and engage with you, our data consumers. This feedback and engagement will drive our priorities to develop additional capability and features to our data portal.

How can you get involved?

We want to engage with you to understand your needs and data dependencies. To get more information, provide feedback, or communicate your ideas, please contact us at data@ssen.co.uk or submit a response on our data request and feedback form.

To find out more about Scottish and Southern Electricity Networks please visit our home page at https://www.ssen.co.uk.

What if I need additional support and help when using the Data Portal?

SSEN Distribution utilises Recite Me assistive technology on our data portal, which enables our visitors to customise their experience in a way that best suits their individual needs. Recite Me believes in accessibility for all, allowing everyone the opportunity to use the internet in the way that it is intended.

Frequently Asked Questions

Where is the data portal hosted?

The SSEN Distribution Data Portal is currently hosted on Datopian Servers.

Can I trust the data?

At SSEN Distribution we have implemented a data quality framework in which we work with data owners and stewards to identify appropriate measures to assess the quality of the data we publish. SSEN Distribution are working to understand how we best present this information to you, the data consumer. We also believe that data quality should not be a barrier to sharing our data assets and that quality is subjective to the use case and have implemented a data asset feedback process which you can access here.

How is new data added?

We are working on retrospectively migrating all existing data asset publications from various sources to our data portal and this will be happening over the coming months. We will engage with you, our data consumer, through stakeholder engagement events such as the digital action plan update, as well as directly through emails at data@ssen.co.uk and via the Data Request and Feedback Form.

To showcase what work, research, or benefits you have delivered using our data please get in contact with us at data@ssen.co.uk or via the Data Request and Feedback Form.

What licence are you releasing data under?

SSEN Distribution have opted to use the Creative Commons International Licence for the publication of any open and public data. To find out more about Creative Commons please visit their website here. All of our data assets published under a creative commons licence will have a direct link to how you can use that data.

SSEN Distribution is committed to collecting and using personal data responsibly, securely and fairly. We want people to understand how we use their data and to become a trusted partner with our customers; we protect the personal data of our employees to the same high standards. We ensure that our handling of personal data is carried out in compliance with:

The General Data Protection Regulation 2016, the Data Protection Act 2018, and the Data Protection Act 2018 (Ire); and
The Privacy and Communications Regulations 2003/E Privacy Regulation 2011 (Ire)·
Policies and procedures put in place by SSE’s Data Protection Officer Please find more information on our Privacy Notice here.

How do I inform you that I want some data removed because I believe it is personal or sensitive data?

You can contact the Data Portal team directly at data@ssen.co.uk

If you would like to contact us in relation to your rights, or if you are unhappy with how we’ve handled your information, you may contact us as follows:
- Email: distributiondataprotection@sse.com
- Address: Distribution Data Protection Team, 2nd Floor, SSEN, Inveralmond House, 200 Dunkeld Road, Perth PH1 3AQ.
If you would like to contact our Data Protection Officer, you may do so using the following details:
- Email: GroupDPO@sse.com
- Address: Data Protection Officer, No. 1 Forbury Place, 43 Forbury Road, Reading, RG1 3JH.
If you’re not satisfied with our response to any complaint or believe our processing of your information does not comply with data protection law, you can make a complaint to the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) using the following details:
- Address: Information Commissioner’s Office, Wycliffe House, Water Lane, Wilmslow, Cheshire, SK9 5AF.
- Telephone Number: 0303 123 1113.
- Website: https://www.ico.org.uk

Who are you working with to make data open and accessible?

SSEN Distribution have been working with Icebreaker One to understand what we can do to best engage with Open Data. This includes considering a number of factors such as Data Sharing Use Cases, Technology Requirements, Data Flows, Critical Roles and Stakeholders, as well as our data platforms, data assets, and key barriers to engagement. We will continue to work with Icebreaker One to understand how we expand past open data publication and engage with the data sharing requirements of the wider energy industry and journey to net zero. This includes consideration of the Icebreaker One Trust Framework and Digital Spine.

How much historic data will SSEN Distribution maintain on the portal?

In alignment with data best practice we will aim to meet reasonable expectations for historical data publications on a case by case basis. Overtime we will look to improve our historical storage and access on the platform, however may archive records where necessary, but they will remain accessible behind a data request.