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NETWORK / 33 / MARCH 2020 Secondly, Project LEO will examine the economic feasibility of new markets and whether viable trades are possible between distributed energy resources and the DSO. This will then support the economics of deferred reinforcement. "Our project partner, Piclo, is incredibly important in this because their platform enables energy and capacity trading, allowing access to energy markets for individuals, businesses and communities," Bryce explains. Hunting down the best local projects Project LEO is hunting for local assets to interact with the DSO to balance the network. "We have one trial with the Oxford Bus Company," says Bryce, "which has two €‚kW behind- the-meter batteries for charging their buses during o„ -peak times when energy prices are lower. Those batteries have been recon… gured to allow them to export to the network as well, so we can now measure the bene… t of being able to draw on that resource for a couple of hours each day." Another valuable local asset is the Sandford Lock hydroelectric plant owned by social enterprise, Low Carbon Hub, the largest community- owned hydro project on the Thames, and that generates €.ˆ GWh of renewable electricity per year using three Archimedes screws. This, Bryce reports, "came with unexpected challenges". River levels rise and fall, which meant the last time Project LEO sought to run a test on this asset, water levels were too high to dispatch. "This illustrates that the future electricity grid will not be a one-size-… ts-all solution," says Bryce. "Oxfordshire will have assets that run in certain ways, and in certain seasons. But, the larger the mix of assets available, the more resilient the Œ exibility solutions." The next stage for Project LEO will be to recruit a critical mass of distributed energy resources behind a primary substation in order to test a localised market. These can range from established battery- based solutions, to vehicle to grid (V2G) and demand side response (DSR). Bryce believes "all technological options will have a part to play" and that "although batteries are perhaps the easiest and most reliable solution, I suspect that DSR is currently the least well understood and has the potential to move load around on the system which could delay additional investment." The lion's share "It is vital that that the bene… ts of the future DSO world, supported by the learnings from Project LEO, are equally shared", warns Bryce. "We are entering an unprecedented period for the energy sector and SSEN and our partners are working to ensure new markets and opportunities are developed e— ciently and transparently, to leave no-one behind." This is a main driver behind SSEN advocating a change to regulations to support network investment ahead of need and development of a new mechanism to support installation of EV charging infrastructure across the whole country, and not just in the hot spots that are … rst to convert to electri… ed transport. Meanwhile, Project LEO is helping to raise awareness of decarbonisation and to show local community groups what part they might have to play in the grid of the future, as Bryce explains: "Project LEO supports people who are interested in becoming prosumers and our trials are teaching us how best to help them." To paraphrase Einstein "where mathematics refers to reality, it is uncertain, and where it is certain, it does not refer to reality." In practice we rely on mathematics to support asset management activities from analysing sensor data to long-term scenario planning. We have systems which grind through copious and varied data to produce a single number representing an asset health score; then use that value in risk calculations to prioritise future spending. For example, consider road bridge #9340 built in Minnesota in 1967 and which tragically collapsed in 2007. The bridge's calculated health score was 50 on a scale of 100, but what does this number mean 'in reality'? Which failure modes are in operation? And how long until the likelihood of failure becomes unacceptable? Major reinforcement had been scheduled for 2007 but was cancelled when it was determined the repairs could weaken the bridge. Work to replace guard rails and improve some joints was underway when the bridge collapsed, killing 13 people and injuring 145. A contributing factor to the failure was determined to be the extra 260 tonnes of construction equipment that was on the bridge at the time. If we want to keep the lights on and keep people safe, we must ensure that the numbers we use for our asset management activities are grounded in reality. We need to understand the uncertainty of the calculated numbers, how they are derived, what they mean in terms of actions and timescales, and any limitations on their use. For more information visit: doble.com D R T O N Y M C G R A I L Solutions director, asset management, Doble Engineering Company DECARBONISATION OF TRANSPORT FUTURE OF FLEXIBILITY LOCALISED ENERGY