Utility Week

UTILITY WEEK | MAY 2022 | 25 Electricity distribution vulnerable to storms and extreme weather events. So to manage that, SSEN invests over £100 million a year in network resilience, and that's through upgrading and reinforc- ing our infrastructure," Rigby says. "We also spend around £20 million on tree cutting and maintenance to keep a good clearance between branches and our lines and are due to increase that by 40% in ED2." Electricity North West (ENW) is similarly committed to investing in improving the resilience of its network through the deploy- ment of its innovation programme. "It is important to note that these changes include ‡ ooding, wind, heat and extreme cold," explains ENW chief executive Peter Emery. "While any one event may bring focus onto a particular aspect such as winds, we have to balance the costs and bene‰ ts to our custom- ers across the full range of risks. We have, for example, spent several millions of pounds over our allowances on additional ‡ ood defences following Storm Desmond." Connectivity woes But keeping customers updated and ensur- ing information and data collected by ‰ eld operatives is shared e‹ ectively are major challenges during and aŽ er extreme weather. As well as power outages, severe storms can strike telecoms infrastructure leading to dis- ruption to telephone and internet services – exacerbating the challenge for DNOs as they try to maintain e‹ ective communication channels, particularly in remote locations. According to Emery, as well as communi- cation issues, the main challenges in deploy- ing teams to remote locations following extreme weather include logistics and main- taining the welfare of both customers and sta‹ . In response, the company has invested in secure communications systems and other technologies to support connectivity for operatives in the ‰ eld. "Our teams are equipped to work o• ine to carry out repairs," explains Emery. "We have already invested in records systems with local data access and will continue to re‰ ne and improve our ‰ eld connectiv- ity capabilities, for example by establishing secure private ‰ bre links to main substations that can act as triage points for teams." But this investment in technology is not unique to ENW. In the knowledge that extreme weather is becoming a more com- mon occurrence, DNOs are under no illusion – adopting new technologies and innovation will be central to improving connectivity and communications with ‰ eld operatives, with customers, and with other utilities. Nadine Buddoo, head of content In association with In this report Introduction Learning critical lessons Connectivity woes Collaborating to better serve customers Driving future innovation V I E W P O I N T Adopting the right technology I N S I G H T R E P O R T The eye of the storm: How technology can supercharge utilities' responses to extreme weather Download the report Download the report The Eye of the Storm free at: https://utilityweek.co.uk/ the-eye-of-the-storm-how-technology- can-supercharge-utilities-responses-to- extreme-weather// in association with Photo: SPEN Damage to telecoms networks resulted in some staff not being able to report damage they had assessed

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