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38 | MAY 2022 | UTILITY WEEK Analysis innovation has been key to the creation of the Smart Canal and the broader, smarter, benefits it offers Glasgow. "Smart cities will be increasingly con- nected places – and these connections by necessity will involve a greater number of organisations and individuals," he tells Util- ity Week Innovate. "The project has enabled sustainable, economic, regeneration for a large area of north Glasgow. New communities are being created with close links to blue-green infra- structure and within 20 minutes' walk of the centre of Glasgow. This provides a good balance of water resilient place-making and health benefits, while supporting the eco- nomic heart of the West of Scotland," he explains. Creating extra capacity for renewables With trials ongoing throughout 2022, Voda- fone UK and UK Power Networks (UKPN) are collaborating on what they claim is a world- first project to connect parts of the electric- ity network using high-speed 5G to create "extra room" for renewables – thereby boost- ing the UK's environmental ambitions – and increase network resilience. The Constellation project will see devices installed in a number of electricity substa- tions to communicate in real time via 5G networks – which transfer data at 10 times the speed of 4G – and enable swathes of telemetry data to be shared in a secure man- ner. This will enable each local substation to analyse millions of data points and optimise accordingly. This will prove particularly vital in man- aging assets at scale in tomorrow's cities where a greater number of distributed energy resources such as renewable generation assets, energy storage systems, and electric vehicles co-exist – or will need to. If rolled out across the UK, it's claimed the solution could save 64,00 tonnes of CO2 by 2050 – equivalent to the carbon emissions from 39,000 return flights from London to New York – and that by 2030 Constellation could save customers £132 million. "The recent developments in communica- tion technology, specifically 5G, offer a solu- tion that is economically scalable across the expansive lower voltage levels of electricity distribution," Peter Papasotiriou, innova- tion programme manager at UKPN, explains. "5G mobile networks introduce a new type of architecture that allows the creation of a set of logically independent networks that run on a common physical infrastructure." Stuart Stone, editor, Utility Week Innovate Comment G reen, blue, brown, yellow, turquoise and even pink – there is a whole rainbow of hydrogen col- ours relating to the different ways in which the gas is produced. The green versus blue debate is well rehearsed, with those at the far-green side calling for hydrogen only from renewable sources, while those in the blue corner argue that hydrogen produced from natural gas with carbon capture is an essential way to kick start the hydrogen economy. Green hydrogen refers to hydrogen produced from electrolysis – where electricity is used to split water into hydrogen and oxygen. When renewable electricity is used the process leaves no carbon footprint, creating a guilt-free fuel that is carbon and emissions free. Blue hydrogen involves stripping carbon from natural Green is not the only colour The colour coding of hydrogen may be actually stifling innovation. "Advocates of blue hydrogen argue that it can be deployed rapidly and at scale." continued from previous page