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NETWORK / 17 / SEPTEMBER 2016 47% of something in here thank you 26% 15% 5 0 Y E A R S O F E A T E C H N O L O G Y 1990 1966 1969- 1990 business now comes from delivering technical services in the fi eld. Another third of the business is taken up with manufacturing instruments for monitoring system health and performance and the fi nal third of our business is consulting. It's this area which is now presenting an exciting view of how our customer focus will continue to evolve. Our work in this area is increasingly focused on the end customer – for example, assessing the impact of cluster electric vehicle installations on local networks. This is really important for us as it is now recognised that the "edge of grid" is where most of the action is going to take place in terms of innovation in the coming years. Developing technologies for interfacing with energy users – or their intermediaries – is therefore now becoming a huge area of interest. What are the biggest technological leaps that EA Technology has made in the past 50 years? Our UltraTEV Range of instruments is certainly among those that have made the biggest impact. These anticipate potential failure of high-voltage network assets and direct interventions to avoid it. In some parts of the world, particularly in places like Hong Kong and Singapore, these monitoring technologies are now almost ubiquitous and are massively improving network performance. Another innovation I have to mention is our Condition-Based Risk Management methodology. This creates a picture of the health of assets and uses this, along with a defi nition of the criticality of an asset, to inform decisions about where to direct investment. It's a "smart intervention" approach that has been adopted around the world as best practice. Relatively new to our portfolio is the addition of the ALVIN range of products, which is designed to self-heal low voltage networks. This range has huge potential for growth around the world and marks a signifi cant evolution of networks towards automation and distributed intelligence. How easy has it been to get new technologies and ideas into business as usual operation? Not easy at all. But just think this through for a minute. We are selling our technologies to companies that are responsible for keeping the lights on for our communities. What we want more than anything is that they are safe and reliable networks. To ask those companies to take risks on their networks with new technologies that may not be fully proven is indeed a big ask. Nobody would thank the utilities if their lights went out and the explanation given was that they were trying out a new technology, so we have to accept that there is cautious uptake when new solutions come along. Sure, I'd like technology uptake to be quicker. We'd see a quicker return on our investment and would be able to plough more back into new developments, but ultimately, we have to see the bigger picture. Ofgem has made a fantastic impact on the investment in innovation over the past decade or more. If they get the incentives right for early adoption and rollout of new technologies, then the potential for faster progress and earlier adoption is certainly there. Do you think the next 50 years will see as much change for EA Technology and the power system as the last? No. I think both will see much, much more change than previously. The network operators we serve simply have to evolve, rapidly, as the diverse range of energy uses and sources of generation start to proliferate. How the networks interface with these diverse and distributed sources of generation as well as how they work with those co-ordinating new sources of consumption will ultimately determine their role in an emerging new market. Similarly, EA Technology will need to transform again. We have to fi nd investment partners to help deliver and then globally commercialise our products. We have to move towards "edge of grid" in the solutions we provide and this might mean that our customer base diversifi es. I can see a world in which we have more to do with companies like Google and Amazon, for instance. All of this change also demands that we continue to accelerate our level of innovation and fi nd novel ways to share risk with the network operators so that we can see those innovations deployed more quickly. Service solutions will be the key here. I think the outsourcing of intelligent network monitoring and asset optimisation to key partners will defi ne a new age of power system innovation. We've already started delivering this internationally via our Astute HV offering and I expect this to come to the UK in a big way in the next few years. It's a very exciting but challenging future. With 50 years now behind EA Technology, the opportunity is for us to use our heritage and maturity as a springboard to continue adapting and delivering new solutions when and where they are needed in the market. If we get it right, by attracting the right investment and talent then we can become a truly global business of signifi cant scale and infl uence. 2004 2004- PRESENT Established as the Electricity Research Council's Research Centre Signifi cant events include: invention of feolite for storage radiators, the halogen hob and lightning location system. Development of identifi cation techniques for transient earth voltage Privatisation of the UK electricity industry leads to a research centre "spin out" – EA Technology. Funding from the electricity networks is ramped down and the business begins it journey towards market- focused innovation – and a peak day average demand of 2,067MW. EA Technology shares redistributed. The company relaunched as an employee-owned organisation, focusing on sustainable, long- term, growth Signifi cant events include: launch of fi rst UltraTEV product and fi rst Condition-Based Risk Management product. Wins Queen's Awards for Enterprise in 2007 and 2011. Opens offi ces in Shanghai, Abu Dhabi, Brisbane and Singapore. Acquires US subsidiary and develops business in 90 countries.