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NETWORK / 23 / JULY/AUGUST 2018 or damage to the network. She says: "We work all year round to improve the resilience of our electricity networks, and we do everything we can to minimise disruption to our customers' supplies. However, in the event customers do lose power, we want to make sure they have all the tools they need to report directly to our teams, in whichever way they feel most comfortable." Meanwhile Faraday Grid is working with UK Power Networks and Scottish Power Energy Networks to deploy new technology that should enhance the reliability of the grid. It does that by being able to instantaneously manage voltage swings, voltage deviation and a lack of inertia – the stability delivered by traditional large synchronous generators that acts to overcome the immedi- ate imbalance between power supply and demand for electric power systems – in the newly decentralised system. Boyd explains: "The technology will replace not only the transformer on the network but several other devices by maintaining active electronic control at high frequency. It is able to adjust its performance instantaneously to the behaviour of the network at any given point in time, and then it is able to provide stabil- ity [inertia]. That makes for a much more stable grid than the one that exists today." Faraday Grid's technology is expected to be up and running at the networks in the Œ rst quarter of 2019, Boyd says. Generating data The connection of so many new generator/consumers – or 'prosumers' – also means the generation of enormous amounts of new data on the network as we transition to a much more customer centric grid, a factor exercising the in- genuity of engineers at IT giant Oracle. Julian Green, business development consultant, says the company is approaching delivering grid resilience from an information management generated thanks to billions of new data points on networks is increasing exponentially. The trick is to be able to analyse and act on it, Green says. He points out that many parts of the grid are still managed via manual actions taken by control engi- neers. In the future, he says, we will see much more automation involved in that decision-mak- ing, based on the logic embed- ded in control systems. Green adds: "We will be able to train the systems to deal with faults and speciŒ c conditions on the network as they occur. Also, we are going to be generating a lot more data in terms of forecast- ing, what loads to expect, what kind of generation capacity we have in relation to those loads, and how to manage any con™ icts." Faraday Grid argues that reducing cost in terms of both electricity prices and the cost of maintaining and running networks will beneŒ t the UK enormously, by helping to make manufacturing industry more competitive with Europe, for example. Boyd says that the company believes that the future energy system will em- ploy an entirely variable rate tariš in response to supply and demand. It is introducing a real-time pricing facility tech- nology to help achieve this, he says. "We believe that this way, we will accelerate the move toward low carbon generation, and also clear away many of the misplaced or uneven incentives that exist in the system today." The threat of blackouts on our evolving, decentralised and democratised grid is real, Boyd says. For example, there have been well-documented incidences of blackouts in south Australia, where there has been widespread adoption of local solar power generation on the grid. "We want to facilitate the introduction of greater levels of renewables onto the grid as we decarbonise the economy, but we have to ensure resilience." "What we're doing is to change the locus of control from the generation side to the grid itself. We want the grid to have capability to maintain control." instantaneously manage voltage replace not only the transformer active electronic control at high frequency. It is able to adjust its electricity prices and the cost of maintaining and running networks will beneŒ t the UK enormously, by helping to make manufacturing industry more competitive with Europe, for example. Boyd says that the company believes that the and demand. It is introducing a real-time pricing facility tech- perspective, rather than focus- ing purely on grid topology, connectivity and control. "Oracle's solutions for network management look at processing and analysing information from SCADA systems on the network that connect medium and high voltage equipment together to deliver telemetry and control, with information from the smart meter, and from any sensors on parts of the grid that are not controlled under SCADA," Green explains. The information from all these sources is collated. "We are able to bring this data together, and essentially create a single perspective for op- erational control to understand exactly what is happening on all or on parts of the network. Visibility is the key, and turning data into useful information – actionable intelligence." The volume of information SSEN's new Power Track app allows customers to alert the network to a power cut using their mobile phone or tablet.