Utility Week

UTILITY WEEK | JUNE 2022 | 35 Technology Webinar The case for private radio A recent Utility Week webinar brought together energy networks to explore the urgent requirement for telecoms infrastructure able to handle the needs of resilience during the energy transition. A robust, national operational telecom- munications solution is an essential component of the net-zero journey, enabling smart grid innovation and the delivery of a ra of performance and reliabil- ity-based targets. Speaking at a recent Utility Week webinar hosted in association with the Joint Radio Company (JRC), the • rm's chief technology o- cer, Julian Sta€ ord, set the context of a projected tripling of the volume of electricity going through the grid each day as a result of the energy transition. "How do you do that without some very sophisticated control and monitoring?" he asked. "People shouldn't underestimate the size of this challenge – it's a paradigm shi ." Ian Smith, chair of the Energy Network Association's strategic telecoms group and logistics manager at Western Power Distribu- tion, said that with rapid growth of electric vehicles, electric heating, and a change in the generation mix afoot, current systems simply aren't capable of advancing at the same rate as industry innovation and infra- structure. He said change is required to hit the goals of 2030 and beyond. Smith explained that while existing operational telecoms have helped inform the industry of "what's on and what's o€ " asset-wise over the past 30 years, meeting a new ra of challenges posed by the likes of community-based energy projects and more decentralisation is a game-changer. In coping with new demands, he stressed it is imperative that the energy industry cater for itself with a speci• cally designed solu- tion, given that commercial systems aren't resilient to power failure and that mobile networks have been built to suit commer- cial users rather than providers of critical infrastructure. He added that the impact of severe storms in late 2021 and early 2022 had highlighted the need for a durable solution to serve energy networks away from the commercial landscape. While an energy-facing solution's capabilities may be narrower than mobile networks – "we're not going to be streaming anything anytime soon" – built in resilience to power failure is integral. Dozie Nnabuife, electricity system res- toration engineer at National Grid Electric- ity System Operator (ESO), said that such a solution would require a whole system approach and that providing security amid greater data sharing, automation and dis- tributed assets would be vital. "Traditionally that's why network operators have private networks," he said, explaining that more points of interconnection made the industry potentially more prone to security issues and cyber-attacks. 5G and OpenRAN rollouts? JRC chief executive Dr Peter Couch gave registered the caveat, however, that explor- ing upgrades to the energy sector's opera- tional communications capability shouldn't be an exercise in "beating up" mobile net- work operators given the degree of "natural separation" between respective regulatory contexts and criticality of service provided by™each. He explained that the bene• ts of private 4G-based solutions, for example, included the ability to transition to 5G over time and the opportunity to tap into internationally recognised standards and technologies that will be maintained over the long term – thereby reducing technology risk. However, Couch said the role of a mobile operator is to provide coverage in areas where customers move, such as residen- tial areas and dense urban locations, rather than rural communities which regularly host network assets – a key hurdle to those pur- suing a public mobile-based solution, in his opinion. In terms of 5G services today, "it's some- what limited in its reach and rollout from a coverage point of view, so you end up in a situation where you wouldn't necessarily be able to migrate to 5G infrastructure because you may only have a limited amount of asset coverage", he said. OpenRAN, which stands for Open Radio Access Network (RAN), is a lower cost option and has been compared to Lego by Ofcom in the way that it can provide the basis for suppliers to build and improve networks by piecing together di€ erent technologies. But JRC's Sta€ ord deemed it "too early to tell" if OpenRAN would be a long-term solution. He said it had come to the fore only in the past 12 months, partially to address the issue of extending coverage to areas that don't justify full RAN layer deployments and that it would be crucial to gauge the consumer impact of OpenRAN before determining its application to critical infrastructure. Less siloed thinking, more collaboration According to Jonathan Collins, external a€ airs manager at Cadent, it is "vitally important" that operational telecoms and strategic national assets are developed in parallel given the former's ability to enhance the latter. As an example, he explained that while Cadent is currently using robotics and AI (arti• cial intelligence) to • x live gas pipes and minimise disruption to customer service, innovative solutions such as these are reliant on strong and seamless communications. "In order to develop towards net zero – but also for us to develop from a techno- logical point of view and serve both our cus- tomers and sta€ on sites – it's very important that the communications network is devel- oped alongside everything else," he said. "Working with local authorities and national government, what external stake- holders want is less siloed thinking, more collaborative thinking." Stuart Stone, editor, Utility Week Innovate To watch the webinar on demand please go to https://utilityweek.co.uk/ensuring- communications-are-• t-for-future-networks in association with

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