Utility Week

UTILITY WEEK | MARCH 2022 | 21 Electricity Open energy data as a force for public good Open energy data has a transformative potential and can be employed to everyone's benefit, says Matt Webb. Comment L et's imagine a website. You log in. You're greeted with an interactive map of Great Britain. You zoom in to the south of England. You can see the entire electricity network. You can click on every cable, or pub- lic electric vehicle charger and see how power is flowing through it. You can view a specific substation, find out when it was built, how many transformers it has, and whether its peak demand is on a Thursday evening or a Friday a ernoon. The tool I've just described is an aspirational vision for a portal in a world where we've realised the full potential of open energy data. As an industry, we are still at the start of that journey. We at UK Power Networks have already taken a fundamental step towards achieving this vision with our Open Data portal, but it's the future that really excites me. The transformative potential is staggering, especially if it includes – as it well should – data from stakehold- ers across the energy system rather than just networks alone. Data access driving flexibility Let's start with a recent example. In February we took several local authorities through our portal, showing them various datasets on the interactive map. We dem- onstrated a range of datasets and functionality within the platform, facilitating various potential use cases and new insights. When we showed them the locations of all our substations, overlayed with flood zone data from the Environment Agency, everyone on the call could see the real-world applications. It could help plan flood defences, or help councils design sustainable develop- ments like new schools, shopping centres, transport links or hospitals. That's the fundamental power of a portal like this. By layering up different data sources – and combining brain power – we can radically improve our ability to achieve sustainable development. Elsewhere on the portal, we recently became the first Distribution Network Operator (DNO) to release datasets about flexibility zones and tender reports from our February 2021 tender. Users can view previous bids, costs, and capacity to continue to improve transparency and market competition. This means they can make informed decisions and more competitive bids for long- term contracts. Such access to information could become one of the primary drivers in growing our flexibility market, attract- ing new providers, increasing efficiency, and driving down costs for all. We see this as a DNO win too: grow- ing our provider pool to better meet our requirements, and saving our customers money over the long term. And that's just what we can do today. Use cases will only continue to grow as we build a community of users, expand our offering, and add new functionality. Building business cases In the future, a start-up might call data via an Applica- tion Programming Interface (API), using thousands of data points to create a new piece of so ware, algorithm or artificial intelligence model that can help DNOs opti- mise their network configurations. The start-up might grow and serve network and system operators across the country. Domestic consum- ers would then start to benefit from a more reliable, cost-effective network. A local council, energy aggregator and charge point provider might join up to view the portal together. They could pinpoint the places in their area that have rela- tively few public chargers and the most to gain from air quality improvements. The aggregator could complete analysis to understand how the chargers could be used smartly and potentially even provide flexibility services, while the chargepoint operator could analyse existing infrastructure to find the most cost-effective locations. With accessible data and information about the energy network, their ambition to provide electric trans- port infrastructure could become a reality. Electricity fundamental to society change To achieve all this, we need to release our data in a structured and coordinated way. Our Open Data princi- ples is a foundational document covering our overarch- ing approach, how we will manage and publish data, and how we will assess which datasets we publish. In writing the document, we partnered with leading experts and engaged with hundreds of interested parties to understand what we need to achieve, enable and publish in the future. Our principles function in line with our 2022 Digital Strategy and Action Plan, which sets out of digital oper- ating model and shows how we'll use new technology to benefit our customers, our employees, our assets and to build a smarter network. To reach net zero emissions, we need to take the car- bon out of electricity and put electricity into everything else. That makes the electricity network fundamental to how we transform our society over the next 30 years. Matt Webb is head of enterprise data at UK Power Networks. He is responsible for enterprise data governance and heads up the development of open data services. This is an edited version of Matt Webb's artile which can be found in full at: https:// utilityweek.co.uk/open- energy-data-as-a-force-for- public-good/

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