Utility Week

UTILITY WEEK | APRIL 2023 | 33 Electricity within their immediate cell. Di erent so - ware platforms could be used for di erent cells, meaning they could be selected to meet the speci c needs of that cell. "National Grid control has a really simple system," he explains. They've got maybe 1,000, 2,000 ends, depending how you count€them. "We have 3.9 million ends on our system and if you go across the country, that's 30 million ends on distribution systems. Imag- ining a platform that can look a er 30 mil- lion ends, or even 3.9 million ends in real time? It doesn't bear thinking about. "If I have one mega-platform to look a er everybody, that is the IT project to end all IT projects." Glendinning says this approach is already used in industrial settings, where there are controllers for each individual process that then send information back to a central brain for the whole facility. Miller says this approach is easily scal- able: "This you can roll out on one street at a time because I get bene ts back when its one street's worth. I get bene ts when I link those streets together. I get bene ts when I link towns together. "You can build that up piece by piece, one house at a time, one street at a time, one town at a time." Northern Powergrid's submission to Ofgem says this cellular approach will empower communities to "re' ect their needs and ambitions, with less centralised DNO decision making, while still prevent- ing unintended consequences for the wider system". The four-year project will take place in three phases. In the rst, Northern Pow- ergrid will design and develop the archi- tecture and solutions for the delivery of cellular community DSO functions, includ- ing analysis and control so ware and hard- ware requirements for network monitoring and control. "Novel predictive and decision-making algorithms that incorporate machine learn- ing and data science are likely to be very important for Community DSO operation, because there is only partial visibility and controllability of low-voltage networks," the document explains. "This work pack- age will include simulation and trialling of the developed approaches within a virtual modelled environment." In the second phase, the DNO will select four communities in its region, some urban and some rural, to take part project. Although they haven't "signed anybody up on the dotted line", Miller says they have already identi ed potential communities. "This won't be a hard sell," adds Glendinning. "There's plenty of communi- ties out there that want to do this type of thing and nd some networks a bit of an issue to deal€with." Northern Powergrid will conduct eld trials over a period up to three years using an iterative approach of trial, review and modify. This will include multi-cell man- agement of a section of network using adja- cent cells and the simulated management of cells across a broader network area. In the third stage, Northern Powergrid will analyse the ndings and identify the necessary regulatory changes and commer- cial arrangements to roll out the model as business-as-usual. "There are some technical challenges around data and control of the equipment but the biggest challenge is a regulatory and commercial one," says Glendinning. "I think the commercial and regulatory issues that will come out of the back end of this are probably where the biggest prize is." Tom Grimwood, insights editor

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