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The Topic: Smart systems UTILITY WEEK | 10TH - 16TH MARCH 2017 | 13 "It's changing with the shift towards digitisation, decentralisation, and decarbonisation. There is increasing penetration of embedded generation, more solar and storage, and the nature of demand is also shifting." • Richard Smith, head of network capability (Electricity), National Grid T en years ago, the smart grid was born with the ethos that it would transform passive infrastructure into a dynamic and responsive facilitator. Skip forward a decade, and a ra of cutting-edge schemes were delivered and valuable learning captured. Smart grids are yet to be ubiquitous and the hype around the revolution in distribution has cooled. The smart grid experiment hasn't failed, but unrealistic expectation has given way to a maturing of the market and novel tech- niques to meet specific challenges. New kid on the block Within the past couple of years, smart cites and the Internet of Things (IoT) have been generating a buzz. Could IoT succumb to the same hype as smart grids? What can we learn from the smart grid market to help negotiate this tricky ground? The first year of the Low Carbon Net- works Fund (LCNF) saw plans to demon- strate a complete picture of the future grid. However, many of the projects struggled to deliver. What emerged was a realisation that smart grids are not one uniform template, but the development of practices that complement established solutions. Thus, the market has matured and projects have moved from simply testing technology, to developing targeted solutions. Data, data, data Daily operations for networks are gener- ally run through centralised operations centres with powerful soware systems. The assumption is that if data is being meas- ured, it should be collected. This led to two notable trends in smart grid data applica- tions. First, distribution networks have begun to invest in analytics to unpack the bits and bytes. Second, there is an emerging trend towards distributed intelligence. Similar trends are also appearing in smart cities. Cities are beginning to collect vast amounts of records and huge data stores are taking shape. Positively, some organisations are making data sets publicly available. It is hoped this will lead to inno- vative applications drawing on a wider crea- tivity pool, and delivering further benefits. We need to talk For many years, electricity grids have relied on communications infrastructure to improve reliability and aid operations. However, communications are being pushed further down the network while their perfor- mance requirements are increasing. This has been one of the key challenges for smart grid, namely how to provide the last mile communications to the furthest reaches of the network. Communications cannot be an aer- thought. Defaulting to the easiest option will ultimately lead to limitations and reduce benefits. There needs to be clarity on per- formance and functionality requirements. These must include appropriate levels of cyber-security designed from the ground up. And, any choice of communications must be one that can grow with future requirements. So where is this smart grid? One frustration oen levelled at smart grid is that the speed of change is too slow. LCNF has demonstrated some marvellous technology, but for everyday deployment it must deliver a positive business case. R&D funding can create an artificial bubble that allows technology to develop in an environ- ment insulated from commercial reality. For those companies attempting to navigate the unworn paths into IoT deploy- ment, the risks are clear. Attempts to define the defacto smart city are already pulling organisations away from defining clear and deliverable use cases. Huge data ware- houses are being produced with the view that one day, the data might be useful. With huge data requirements come huge com- munications requirements, not to mention the challenges associated with ensuring the solutions are resilient to cyber-attack through the entire solution. However, it's not all doom and gloom. On the plus side, IoT and smart cities do indeed pose a huge opportunity to revolutionise civic infrastructure through the development of targeted use cases. Multi-application platforms leveraging the same infrastructure will in turn deliver real benefits with the correct use cases, which will differ from city to city. Time will tell as to how quickly the IoT industry will mature, and more importantly for those pioneering organisations, who the winners and losers will be. As for predicting who those will be? Ask me in ten years. Comment: Steven Burns, Institution of Engineering and Technology, energy sector What can smart cities and IoT learn from smart grids? "New technology is changing the way that we generate, distribute and consume energy. In particular, the application of information and communications technology is transforming our old passive energy networks into an increasingly smart energy system." • Greg Clark, business and energy secretary "Widespread adoption of smart home technology, if it happens, will be the key to the survival and future prosperity of the utilities sector." • Robert McFarlane, head of labs at Head