Helping Network Operators build a smarter grid

As talks continue at the Conference of Parties (COP21) in Paris, an essential element in building a future lower carbon economy is an electricity network that can facilitate more flexible demand, the balancing of variable renewable generation, and support more dispatchable generation.

Over the last few years, we have seen the decommissioning of many of Britain’s old thermal generation power plants, however making the transition a reality will also require huge financial commitments from Distribution Network Operators (DNOs) to invest in grid upgrades to make the network smarter and more resilient.

The regulatory environment of the current electricity network means that DNOs are also exposed to the potential for heavy penalties due to widespread power outages. According to the Royal Academy of Engineers, power outages cost the UK economy up to £6.5million per MWh. In 2014, severe blackouts in the southwest of England due to severe flooding caused 750,000 homes to lose power. The disruption resulted in DNOs in the two worst-hit areas having to pay around £8 million in compensation. Smart Grid technologies can provide DNOs with a safety net that minimises the impact of faults automatically and reduces the potential risk of fines. The autonomous nature of the Smart Grid provides DNOs with the opportunity to reduce operating costs as the number of hours engineers are called out on location to assess faults is lowered.

From 2014 to 2020, DNOs will invest around £25 billion in grid upgrades through Ofgem’s RIIO Price Control model, putting the UK in the driving seat of some of the largest network infrastructure projects in Europe. Despite its needs, the energy sector is vulnerable to being presented as a political football, with long-term goals being undermined by the struggle for value for money. As such, projects are under intense scrutiny – the potential for project delays or overspending needs to be kept to a minimum. To overcome these concerns, DNOs need to work alongside Grid Architects and EPCs to develop the business case for new technologies and strategies for delivering projects on time, within budget and to perform as expected.

Building a Smart Grid in the UK has the potential to provide huge returns for the economy. According to figures published in 2014 by the Department of Energy and Climate Change (Decc), developing a smarter grid will create economic growth and jobs with an estimated potential £13bn of Gross Value Added, £5bn of potential exports to 2050; and 9,000 jobs to 2030 associated with smart grids. If these gains are to be achieved, we need to ensure that industry players work together to share their learning from the various grid innovation trials taking place around Britain, with the aim of ensuring innovative solutions become business-as-usual.

As a member of Workstream six, S&C Electric Company has been at the forefront of Smart Grid development in the UK and abroad by delivering bespoke projects onto the network, offering DNOs a suite of Smart Grid technologies and solutions, and providing consultation to their engineers. Supported by the Low Carbon Network Fund, S&C was commissioned by SSE to transform the electricity network of the Shetland Islands by installing a 1MW/3MWh PureWave® Storage Management system. As part of the Northern Isles New Energy Solutions (NINES) project, S&C’s PureWave® solution stored excess or off-peak energy from the Island’s renewable generation for times of peak demand. Consequently, the storage solution for Peak Shaving and Load Shifting applications, allowed the Shetland Islands to reduce their reliance on diesel generators, lower carbon emissions and increase the life of the current generator.

Over the next decade, a host of Smart Grid technologies will continue to be installed onto the grid, working seamlessly to improve the efficiency, flexibility and reliability of the network. Management monitoring software platforms for instance will become more widely integrated, allowing engineers to further understand in real-time potential issues on the grid. If a fault is detected, radios strategically placed across the network will communicate the problem to switches which will isolate the fault, restoring power to customers within a few seconds. These autonomous Self-Healing solutions will lower the amount of hours engineers are called out on location to assess problems and will improve customer satisfaction as the impact of faults are kept to a minimum.

New types of grid balancing solutions will become more widely integrated on the network, including energy storage and Demand Side Response (DSR). In October 2015, Chancellor George Osborne launched a new independent National Infrastructure Commission (NIC), charged with offering unbiased analysis of the UK’s long-term infrastructure needs. The Commission is being led by Lord Andrew Adonis acting as its first chairman. The NIC has already identified energy storage and DSR as two key solutions for the development of Britain’s electricity network. The Commission will help to set long-term infrastructure goals for the next 25-30 years, however in the short to medium term, DNOs need to partner with Smart Grid experts and Grid Architects to deliver upgrades that will future-proof the network.

The grid will undergo huge changes over the next decade, with a suite of new solutions coming on stream to make the grid more automated, low carbon and more resilient. To ensure these innovative solutions are adopted quickly, DNOs need to develop the business case for new technologies and the strategy for delivering them on schedule and within budget. By establishing industry partnership, DNOs will be able to deliver projects like the one seen in the Shetland Islands on a larger scale. Without these relationships in place, DNOs run the risk of being further exposed to outside factors that could delay projects and affect their bottom line.