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NETWORK / 31 / OCTOBER 2016 judged on return on investment, which must be a factor because the mechanism is funded by customers and must represent value for money, some BAU is needed. But not that much, says Stewart Reid, head of asset management and innovation at SSE. He points out that an active network management solution in the Orkney Isles saved £30 million. "There's a lot of innovations that won't come through, but the important thing is that the ones that do pay back the money." As well as potentially being an inaccurate measure of success, the focus on BAU may have held the mechanism back. The UKERC's report says the focus has either encouraged "incremental, conservative projects" – high-level TRL projects that are more likely to reach BAU – or influenced DNOs to report low-TRL projects as if the TRL were much higher. It adds that there is a reluctance among DNOs to report thoroughly projects that do not have a successful outcome. Much of the work carried out under the LCNF has had a future-gazing focus, looking ahead at technologies such as battery storage and renewables that have yet to achieve any meaningful penetration of the UK market, limiting the adoption of project findings at present. Ofgem has said it would like to see more focus in the current network innovation competition on asset management; an area where innovation is o"en closer to BAU. But industry argues that keeping this balance is important, especially in creating business models "or we are going to be into sticking plaster solutions" Mark Thompson, lead technologist at Innovate UK, says. Another measure could be to look at the knowledge gained, a"er all, the LCNF's intended purpose was to "help DNOs understand how they provide security of supply at value for money and facilitate transition to the low-carbon economy". UKERC said Strong evidence against Indications against Inconclusive Indications for Strong evidence for -4 -3 -2 -1 0 1 2 3 4 BAU scoring chart Learning topic Innovation BAU score -4 -3 -2 -1 0 1 2 3 4 Storage for power flow management and voltage control Large-scale batteries Distributed small- scale batteries Summary of BAU scores for storage innovations Learning topic Innovation BAU score -4 -3 -2 -1 0 1 2 3 4 Network configuation for power flow management and protection 33kV interconnection 11kV interconnection LV interconnection LV smart fuse Summary of BAU scores for network reconfiguration innovations Learning Topic Innovation BAU score -4 -3 -2 -1 0 1 2 3 4 Enhanced network monitoring 11kV feeder monitoring Secondary substation monitoring LV feeder monitoring Utilising smart meter data Summary of BAU scores for enhanced network monitoring innovations "much useful knowledge has been generated". A different interpretation of BAU is the act of undertaking the innovation in the first place. On this basis the mechanism has been far more successful. Before it was introduced in 2009, spend on innovation by DNOs had dropped to just £1 million in 2003/04. The report suggests that without the funding, innovation would "likely have been stagnant at best and non-existent at worst". But DNOs are not ready to be le" to continue the journey unsupported. UKERC notes that the quality of reporting has been varied and is an area that must be improved. But there are limitations to what funding can achieve. Many of the innovations have reached the stage of developing commercial models. Reid says this must be done without funding, or people are "too relaxed about what they are signing on to. I think the boundary is when we start to newly test some of these commercial models." N The median BAU score is an indicator of the relative amount of project activity, and the width of the high-low line indicates the range of scores across the relevant projects.