Utility Week

UTILITY WEEK | 26TH APRIL - 2ND MAY 2019 | 7 Interview P atrick Erwin has a small office for a "big picture" man – or maybe it just feels that way. While every one of his responses is painstakingly considered, the policy and markets director at Northern Powergrid spontaneously makes a powerful argument that net- works are key to the smarter system of the future. It's a vision that looks all the more compelling once you check out his CV. Erwin has strong commercial nous, honed over several years of working across a broad range of industry roles. He has also spearheaded some of the most important initiatives shaping the energy sector today. It was Erwin who set up the Infrastructure Planning Commission, and who helped drive initial work for the Climate Change Act. He also led on early plans for two energy bills, and has spent time at the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs and the then-Department of Energy and Climate Change. His ideas for Northern Powergrid are no less ambi- tious, as the network steps up to be a vital player in the country's transition to a flexible energy system. We meet in that small office on a quiet floor of a block tucked away behind Covent Garden. The London venue comes courtesy of Cal Energy – a non-regulated arm of the holding group's stable of businesses – and it's where Erwin proceeds to map out for me Northern Powergrid's overarching plans. This is already a landmark time for the Newcastle- based electricity distribution company, which holds two of the country's 14 licences – covering the North East and Yorkshire. It is aiming to become the region's distribution sys- tems operator (DSO), the future facilitator of the trans- forming energy market, also responsible for the integrity of the system. That message is echoed in Northern Pow- ergrid's Next Steps and Emerging Thinking consultation paper, in which Erwin offers a scene-setting vision of the future. "Imagine a world where you can buy electricity gener- ated by your neighbour's solar panels more cheaply than from your energy company; where you get a discount on power bills for letting your electric car back up the elec- tricity system when it's not in use; where batteries kick in automatically to keep critical infrastructure and your home running in a power cut. This is the world of the smart grid." Thanks to Erwin's academic achievements being as eclectic as his career history, he does detail as well as concept. He has a forensic understanding of physics and – rather impressively thanks to a doctorate from Oxford, of volcanology – equipping him well for envisaging how the energy system's own seismic shi™ will happen. As he reveals some of these high-level thoughts, occasionally crossing the room to draw a colourful dia- gram on the whiteboard, it's impossible not to buy into the exciting prospects he sees ahead for a sector whose

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