The project aims to reduce energy costs and improve security of energy supply for customers by making it easier for communities in cities and towns to optimise their own energy system before calling on the National Grid. This will be achieved by a new kind of local network control system, located at substations across participating localities. The benefits to the national system are reduced demand on the central control system. The benefits to localities are scope for them to make more efficient use of distributed generation assets (solar, wind etc) and potential to realise greater value from demand management approaches and technologies. This is an early stage project to demonstrate technical feasibility and subsequent pilots and commercial deployments are expected to result in a highly scaleable and exportable technology solution, providing a platform wider adoption of low carbon distributed energy technologies nationally.