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NETWORK / 22 / JULY/AUGUST 2018 T he news that President Trump's administration will keep ailing coal and nuclear plants running in the face of competition from wind, solar and natural gas-fired genera - tion – the White House argues that the plants are essential to national security and the resiliency of the energy system in the US – attracted the ire of environmentalists in June. The green lobby wasn't alone in criticising Trump's move. US network PJM Interconnec - tion, which operates the grid in all or part of 13 states, warned that his proposal could lead to higher power prices for Ameri- cans. "Markets have helped to establish a reliable grid with historically low prices," PJM said. "Any federal intervention in the market to order customers PROTECTION, MONITORING & CONTROL to buy electricity from specific power plants would be damag- ing to the markets and therefore costly to consumers." In the UK, the scale and pace of change in the energy industry over the past decade has been unprecedented. For example, the number of assets connected to the UK grid has gone from about 80 in 2004 to a staggering 900,000 currently, points out Derek Boyd, director of market - ing, UK and Europe, at Faraday Grid. Boyd says: "The grid has fun- damentally changed in recent history thanks to the 'four Ds' – decentralisation, digitalisation, decarbonisation and democrati- sation. Technology has enabled this fundamental change, and the pace has been quicker than anybody would have antici- pated. "Who would think that an electricity grid designed to cope with 80 generators could deal with this level of change? Some of those 900,000 are genera - tors, and at other points they are also consumers. That means another level of complexity. And the biggest threat to the grid is blackouts." Continuing innovation Networks are having to con- tinuously innovate in order to improve the resilience of the grid, and protect and repair assets on the network. For example, electricity customers in the north of Scotland and central England can now report power cuts and damage to the network directly to Scottish and Southern Electricity Networks (SSEN). Rather than phoning customer services, SSEN's new Power Track app allows custom - ers to alert the network to a power cut using their mobile phone or tablet. The app should help SSEN to respond quicker to power cuts, which should mean customers will have their power restored faster. The report will go directly to the network, which will deploy engineers to investigate, reconnecting power supplies as quickly as possible. The app also allows members of the public to take photos of any damage they see to send directly to teams at SSEN. These images, combined with GPS signals, will alert engineers to the location and potential cause of any problems. This should allow them to minimise time locating faults, and promptly repair any damage. Lisa Doogan, director of customer relationship manage - ment at SSEN, says the network wants to ensure it is easier for customers to report power cuts The number of assets connected to the grid has increased rapidly over the years. Ensuring resilience Grid reliability and the control and protection of assets remain critical issues for networks. Ben Hargreaves reports.