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NETWORK / 28 / SEPTEMBER 2018 ASSET MANAGEMENT T his summer pro- vided a prime ex- ample of one event that will impact on electricity and gas networks more and more in the future: extreme weather. The heatwave saw tem- peratures of 35°C (90F) recorded in late July at Heathrow, while June was Britain's hottest for more than 40 years. Scientists believe that we will see more extreme weather as the e† ects of climate change are felt in the UK. In this context, the integration of much greater levels of renewable energy onto the grid has never felt timelier. But just like extreme heat, that also poses problems for DNOs and DSOs, explains Dr Jaise Kuriakose, lecturer in climate change at the Tyndall Centre for Climate Change, University of Understanding assets Energy systems are changing and balancing the need to upgrade the networks for the future customer while maintaining the operational performance and affordability needed today is key. Ben Hargreaves reports. Manchester. "Integrating greater levels of wind and solar onto the grid is a major challenge, espe- cially when you consider the age of our networks. The decarboni- sation of the grid means bring- ing distributed wind and solar of electric vehicles onto the grid, the picture for networks looking to manage their assets is even more complicated, Kuriakose says. "Weather events like heatwaves a† ect the capacity of overhead lines. For example, at higher temperatures, they have lower capacity. If we have an increase in demand, how are we going to manage? Those are some of the challenges, and that's before you consider other issues such as grid inertia and harmonics." At the University of Man- chester, researchers are able to experiment with extremely high voltage test equipment at what is said to be the UK's largest high voltage laboratory in a bid to help networks understand how assets will perform – and intervene before failure occurs. Dr Vidyadhar Peesapat, knowl- edge transfer research fellow at The Electrical Energy and Power Systems Group, can pump up to 800,000 volts through an aging piece of infrastructure to see what happens. He's looking for tell-tale signs that indicate it may need to be replaced or re- paired, information that he can pass on to networks and utili- ties. "In terms of asset manage- ment, we have a network that is 50 years old, and equipment on the network that is more than 50 years old. No network or utility wants a blackout. We want to pick up faults before they actu- ally happen, especially with old equipment. The ideal scenario for any network operator or asset owner is to understand failure before it happens – that's what we are here for." Storage matters If the Manchester research is helping networks understand and manage existing assets before they fail, the grid will also rely on the introduction of newer, cutting-edge technolo- gies in order to become more resilient. Energy storage is likely to play a crucial role in both managing intermittent power generation from renewables and making networks and the grid future-proof. Highview Power, power on stream, but our assets are degrading. That makes the management of voltage and frequency challenging." When you add to that the im- pact of climate change, and the addition of far greater numbers SSEN will trial the use of robots for high-voltage power line inspections after entering into a partnership with Williams Advanced Engineering. Pictured: Ben Pirie (SSEN) and Stu Olden (Williams). Highview Power's liquid air energy storage (LAES) plant in Bury.