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NETWORK / 14 / SEpTEmbER 2017 T he regulatory environment for net- works and the many assets they contain is evolving, just as the networks are evolving themselves. While Ofgem's RIIO framework represents considerable challenges for DNOs and soon to be DSOs, it also provides many opportunities. John Scott, director of Chiltern Power, an independent energy consultancy, says that the DNOs have "traditionally been regarded as a relatively passive part of the power system". Provided they have done their job, the focus for active system operation has fallen on the National Grid as system opera- tor. This is now changing. "The biggest change is moving from a centralised system to a distributed system with solar panels on people's roofs, wind farms being con- nected much further down the distribution network, and customers offering flexible loads," Scott says. A new small onshore wind farm or solar array doesn't justify the time and expense of a connection at a transmission system level, while consumers are now also generating and storing their own power at a micro level. Electric vehicles drain power from the grid but also provide a potential means of storing energy. Smart meters provide the means for automation to assess and control customer energy usage as never before. Scott says: "It is not only the customer that can make use of automation and more intelligent decisions – the big distribu- tion system can as well. That distribution network sitting between customers and the National Grid has been largely passive, but with more sensors, information and greater speed of communication, networks can be run in a much more intelligent way." This moves into an area of asset manage- ment called 'active network management', in which devices that sit in the distribution network at different levels automatically control parts of the system. This has been used most successfully to date to help pro- vide cheaper and faster connections to the REGULATION Understanding our assets New technologies and distributed generation mean that asset management will change under the next round of RIIO, experts say.