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The Topic: Transformation TRANSFORMATION THE TOPIC 14 | 21ST - 27TH JULY 2017 | UTILITY WEEK Report sponsored by: Contact: David Lyon davidlyon@europe.pall.com www.pallwater.com Smart meters were voted one of the top ten most transformative technologies for utilities in a poll prior to Utility Week Live. At the show, delegates heard this took two forms. First, the smart meter programme has placed a trans- formation requirement on sup- pliers. Alongside other industry initiatives, like the move to half-hourly metering, it is forc- ing business processes, field operations and customer service to adapt to a smart meter first mentality. Second, however, smart meters are enablers for a much wider smart energy transforma- tion, which interplays with tech- nologies such as electric vehicles and smart homes. On the first area of smart transformation, KPMG smart metering expert Amy Marshall reviewed progress. She congrat- ulated the industry on the huge amount that has been achieved by suppliers, installers, manu- facturers and the Data and Com- munications Company (DCC), which operates the central data system. However, she characterised the transformation as a work in progress and said there is a long way to go before smart meters can be considered business as usual. Marshal looked forward to the critical launch of the next phase of functionality from the DCC, and for greater maturity in the SMETS2 product base. "Four devices have now been certi- fied for commercial product assurance by the National Cyber Security Centre," she said. She also observed that suppliers are working hard on shiing the management SMART METERING Smart metering has been widely her- alded as revolution- ary, but thus far that transformation is a work in progress. of smart metering away from being a discreet project, and towards it becoming "the way energy supply companies work". Many have now completed bill- ing system overhauls to accom- modate smart metering. On the second issue of ena- bling a wider smart energy transformation, DCC managing director Angus Flett outlined an ambitious vision in which smart meters form the bedrock of advanced services, not just for energy directly, but for life- style management and even healthcare. Marshall, too, acknowledged that smart meters have already enabled some suppliers to launch demonstrator tariffs for electric vehicle charging. However, she identified that "smart meters are not neces- sarily a foundation of the smart home". If smart meters are to play an important part here, the volume of installations – ideally of SMETS2 meters – will need to increase rapidly. CASE STUDY: THE CONNECTED DRONE The pressure is on for utility network opera- tors to transform their asset management performance, maintaining reliability while boosting resilience, delivering efficiencies and reducing costs. With more than 800,000km of overhead lines and underground cables to manage and maintain, distribution network opera- tors face a significant challenge keeping tabs on all of their assets and monitoring their condition. Finding innovative and time-saving solu- tions to monitor and check the condition of their assets is vital to ensure reliability and resilience are achieved at the same time as cutting costs. Drones are now commonly recognised as a key way to do this, and the capabilities of drones are developing fast. In the Innovation theatre at Utility Week Live, delegates were keen to hear about a joint project con- ducted by 12 Norwegian utilities to trial the functionality of a "Connected Drone". Now that solution is coming to the UK under the aegis of eSmart Systems. It has the potential to slash the time taken to log assets and record their condition. • The Connected Drone combines cloud software with a variety of sensors and cameras to create a visual record of assets, recording their location and condition. • 100,000 pictures can be recorded and analysed in one hour. A two-person team would take one year to record the same number • The Connected Drone is released with the following intelligent features: - automatic detection of masts, insula- tors, traverses and top hats; - automatic detection of objects on power lines; - automatic detection of missing top hats; - installation analysis of insulators. • 360-degree rotating camera, fitted with long and short-range lidar sensors. • Scope for fully autonomous drones in the future. • The software uses "power line optimised, deep-learning algorithms" to identify problems on the network. 6m Over six million smart meters are now on walls 4 years It has taken four years to get to where we are now 3 years The industry has three years left to address the remaining instal- lations – approx. 48 million SMART METERS: THE BIG NUMBERS EV numbers 97,000 plug-in cars in the UK 4,500 plug-in vans in the UK 55 plug-in vehicle models available in the UK 12,518 charge points May 2017 figures