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NETWORK / 13 / SEPTEMBER 2016 be, supported within this hybrid environment. "The good thing about the DNO structure is that we can drive innovation, but we can also enable it for others," says Emery as he welcomes Network to ENW's central Manchester offices. Explaining his thinking, Emery says that current fund- ing structures incentivise DNOs to help private sector entre- preneurs, with ambitious stor- age solutions or new types of embedded generation, to con- nect to the network in a way – and at a pace – which would not otherwise be possible. Thanks to the innovation emphasis in the RIIO regula- tory structure, "we can get them on the system quickly" in an environment that "accelerates and de-risks innovation – to an extent" and which is "technol- ogy agnostic". Once new partners are on the system, "we can work with them to understand what benefits there are for the customer – and whether we can lower our costs in the process", says Emery. All that said, however, Emery is also starting to form ideas about how innovation relation- ships and deployment could be improved – and about how networks could or should be allowed to reap rewards for their innovation activities. First, Emery is positive about the recent interest shown by Ofgem in the role of third parties in innovation projects and by discussions about how to endow them with greater influence. Working on the premise that "competition is good" Emery thinks that actions to encourage more collaboration with both small and large technology part- ners would increase the vision and broaden the knowledge base behind innovation projects. In short, private sector influence in network innovation, either in collaboration or via "arm's length" projects, "delivers better results and is more interesting and exciting for our people". It also tends to bring in an international perspective and experience which DNOs are unlikely to be able to bring to bear alone, Emery adds. He points to ENW's recent experi- ence working with Schneider Electric on a new control system to enable smarter management of its network as an example. This collaboration is a reflec- tion of ENW's relatively bold approach to innovation in a DNO context, says Emery. "It shows that this DNO is willing to go it alone," he states. "Every other DNO uses a GE platform – so we are sticking our necks out here." But, more importantly, a close working relationship with Schneider in development and tailoring of the system has given ENW access to a much bigger pool of new ideas and experience. "Schneider brings a lot to the party because it can leverage learnings from other sectors and regions," says Emery. The sys- tem is due to go live in 2018 and will "help us manage [decentral- ised] technologies over the next 10-20 years". With this positive experi- ence – and a range of other suc- cessful collaborative projects – under its belt, Emery says broadening ENW's innovation partnerships and doing more to forge mutually beneficial links with advances in paral- lel sectors is a key challenge going forward. There are opportunities under ENW's nose in Manches- ter, for instance, where Emery knows "there's an awful lot going on to develop new ways of working. Ideas for new net- works – private networks – and decentralised power," as well as electrified transport and novel heat projects. "It's one of the challenges I face in this role – how to capitalise on that? How can we take advantage of what is a fairly receptive and fertile environment for change in order to develop our business?" Which brings us to another area where Emery sees scope for change to the industry innova- tion structure. While Emery is pro-collaboration and shared benefits, thoughts about what ENW specifically gets out of its proactive attitude to innovation are beginning to crop up more frequently. "One of the challenges for me, and I'm sure it will be a question our shareholders ask us o˜en is, how can we bank the cheque for this [innovation work] for Electricity North West? There's no doubt, we ENW is among the most ambitious DNOs in terms of its ambition to reduce its costs through innovation. It outstripped its commitment to achieve an 18% reduction in costs in year one of RIIO-ED1, instead hitting a 21% reduction. Across the price control, it is aiming to reduce costs by an average of 16%. Leader Emery says ENW is "relishing" the current trend towards more customer engagement. As it looks to become more active in its network management it is finding that interfaces with customers – especially at an industrial and commercial level – are becoming more frequent. They also tend to be associated with exciting opportunities for demand-side response and the introduction of new contracts for network operation (rather than with more mundane service issues), and this is inspiring for ENW employees. That said, and despite its strong performance on network reliability, Emery admits that ENW's track record on customer satisfaction, as measured by Ofgem, is lacking. "It's a weakness. We need to interact with the customer more effectively – ironically, because we are one of the most reliable DNOs. We get less breakdowns and less fault interactions with customers – but that is not a measure of our customer service in as far as it's measured by the regulator," Emery observes. "We get benefit for our reliability through the CIs [customer interruptions] and CMLs [customer minutes lost]… But we need to improve the way we interact with the customer when there is a fault. There's no doubt about it." A couple of developments this year should help. First off, there's the launch of the three- digit emergency number (105) for power outages. This should make it easier for customers to get in touch with their DNO when power failures occur. Specific to ENW, another development is the go-live of a new cloud-based customer contact centre capable of delivering customised information to customers about their connection. The platform was initiated in August and can be scaled up and down to deal with variable contact requirements. Improving customer service "How can we bank the cheque for this innovation work for Electricity North West?"