Utility Week

Special report 10 | 7TH - 13TH JUNE 2019 | UTILITY WEEK Utility Week Live 2019 The hack was back Greg Jones reports on the 2019 Future Systems Hackathon, in which 20 hackers took on tasks during the two days of Utility Week Live and Edie Live. With interaction increasingly seen as key to discover- ing workable answers to the challenges facing utili- ties today, the joining of the two co-located events for the hackathon at the NEC brought together both audi- ences of industry professionals and sustainability leaders, along with technology solutions providers. Hackers were allocated between each title and given two challenges, with the Utility Week team focus- ing on supporting the rollout of electric vehicles (EVs) and using data and technology to improve customer service. Edie's team centred on creating tools to best understand and use big data, and to help understand and implement demand-side response (DSR). Hackers, working solo or in pairs, then devoted the relatively short time to developing a groundbreaking solution to one of these pressing problems of the future. At lunchtime on day two, with the event eclipsing 24 hours of continuous work time, participants pre- sented their work to their peers and delegates. One standout project was scalable modular asset control (SMACK). Its developer said it was intended to solve a problem with demand-side management adop- tion that he had frequently heard from conversations with delegates. Many had spoken of the difficulty in connecting systems in DSR schemes because there was no common layer to use, forcing the creation of expensive and time-consuming bespoke systems. He suggested a common modular platform to more easily integrate devices, increasing accessibility and the ease with which solutions could be created. Another standout project was Charger Predict, a tool designed to find ideal locations to place EV charging stations. It uses data that details population, geographical density of EVs, area energy use, types of chargers used, and the proportion of cars that regu- larly use public chargers in a local area to identify areas most in need of new installations. Climate's time With utilities at the heart of the drive to decarbonise and climate change a standout issue, Suzanne Heneghan spoke to Keynote speaker Mike Thompson of the Committee on Climate Change. M ike Thompson is a man in demand, as revealed by the queue forming to speak to the head of carbon budgets at the Committee on Climate Change (CCC). Combatting global warming is an issue that has raced up the policy agenda. Now, ten years on from the Climate Change Act, with the popular mood behind environmental lobby groups such as Extinction Rebel- lion and the official declaration of a "climate emergency", I asked Thompson if it had suddenly felt like the perfect moment to publish the CCC report, as well as whether its target for net zero emissions by 2050 will deliver change soon enough. And it's an unequivocal "yes" on both counts. "We think it [2050] is the fastest we can credibly aim for at the moment," he said, although he was careful to say that bringing it forward was not being ruled out. "We didn't say it was impossible to go earlier. But we don't think it would be credible to aim for it now." He was also at pains to clear up a growing misunderstanding in some quarters about the targets. "The clear message in the report is to aim for 2050 – but proper net zero, so all greenhouse gases, including aviation and shipping. Set that as a goal. And if you can do that in the UK, other developed countries can do it at the same time. Developing countries can come still a bit later, and so you can still hit 1.5 degrees. So, it's more ambitious than we need at a global level. "It's really important to be clear about that – there's a miscon- ception out there that the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change said carbon neutral by 2050 for the world. But that's only carbon dioxide. Our report is for all greenhouse gases. Thompson added: "In terms of all the background – Extinction Rebellion, the school strikes, you're right – it makes this an amaz- ing moment to launch this report. But more than that, it's really important globally – the next 18 months are the time for the world to ratchet up its ambition on the Paris Agreement." The UK moving now would be a game-changing international development and a way to help others build on that effort, he said. "And this report is a blueprint for how you can do it. And the UK would have to do it, if it were written into the Cli- mate Change Act. Us doing that would be an incred- ibly strong signal to send out, and it really would make a difference." The CCC are official advisers, rather than poli- cymakers, so will government go for it? "The line our chairman said [to government] in the report is 'You asked for it'. They requested this advice. They said they would listen to the scientific evidence. "We've said there's the evidence, and the evidence says this is the right target – it has to be net zero 2050. It has to be delivered in the UK, it has to be all greenhouse gases. To follow the evi- dence, they have to accept it." See Energy Summit preview, p12.

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