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NETWORK / 32 / NOVEMBER 2016 A s a throng of energy network professionals converged on Manchester this year, a key talking point was how this year's host, Elec tricity North West, is setting itself apart from the crowd. In 2014, ENW took the brave decision to step away from industry standards for control room technology and partner with Schneider Electric to implement a completely new and highly advanced network management system (NMS). NMS programme manager Martin Cawson sets out what the comapny hopes to achieve: The need to change our NMS is driven by our RIIO submission. Electricity North West is going it alone by introducing a network management system that departs from the industry norm. Lone wolf About ENW Electricity North West's license area spans 12,500km 2 and incorporates £12 billion- worth of assets. The DNO serves 4.9 million customers in 2.4 million properties and on average, it distributes 25TWh of electricity a year. The asset base includes: • Over 13,000 kilometres of overhead lines • 44,000 kilometres of underground cables • 84,000 items of switchgear • 34,000 transformation points The process we went through for that involved going out to customers and stakeholders to find out what they needed from the network. Repeatedly, the big things they identified were affordable supplies, sustainability and reliability. Getting smarter To deliver this – in the knowledge that further demands are coming – we saw that we had to make the transition to being a "smart grid". Traditional approaches to network reinforcement to support new demand would have been prohibitively expensive for customers – and would be unsustainable. NET WORK MANAGEMENT