Issue link: https://fhpublishing.uberflip.com/i/951810
THE TECH: SMART METERS What's the deal: The rollout of smart meters to every UK household and businesses kicked off in 2012 following an edict from Brussels that the technology would spread out across the EU. To date, almost nine million smart meters have been deployed in home sand small businesses across the UK, just a frac on of the total rollout challenge, which s ll has a deadline of 2020 for suppliers to have displayed "all reasonable measures" to offer customers installa on. Why it ma ers: The main smart meter value proposi on for consumers is greater visibility of energy use – and therefore greater control over energy costs. But the lion's share of the benefits of smart meters will fall to suppliers, who can expect reduced metering and billing costs over the long term and for whom the technology opens up real scope for tariff innova on. Under pressure to meet rollout targets, suppliers are also s ll hampered by hold ups to the deployment of SMETS 2 smart meters, which can really deliver the whole smart metering package for consumers and start making use of the centralised data communica ons system set up by the DCC. In the mean me, less smart SMETS 1 meters are s ll being installed, totalling 8.6 million at last count. Say what?: "DNOs ignore smart meters them at their peril. The top performers recognise that they will help them manage interrup ons be er and are star ng to look at pilots for how they might use the "last-gasp" and "first-breath" func onality to do that. But there's a lot of other data that smart meters will collect too…All DNOs need to start thinking seriously about the opportuni es and challenges to avoid being caught out," Maxine Frerk, director, Grid Edge Policy. THE TECH: DATA ANALYTICS What's the deal: U li es are si ng on a goldmine of opportunity in the form of data analy cs. With more informa on than ever before flowing from smart meters and other sensors alongside tradi onal sources of data about their opera ons, the informa on is there for the taking. Why it ma ers: The importance of analy cs isn't news for most, who see the poten al to mine data for invaluable insights. Analy cs can help large u li es increase capital produc vity and save millions in opera ons and maintenance expenditures by helping them improve opera ons, op mise capital deployment and understand their procurement be er. They can also help boost reliability by preven ng outages through more accurate predic ons about when to replace failing equipment, or improve outage response through situa onal awareness and be er management of performance. In short, u li es can understand customers and their energy and water use be er through data analy cs – knowledge they can use to design new products and services, such as demand- side management programs that reduce electricity use at peak mes. The possibili es are endless – but if our research is to be heeded, u li es have a long way to go in realising the full poten al data has to offer. Say what?: "U lity leaders are using the data and tools they already have in hand to begin improving the ways they work." "From rising capital costs to increased global compe on and more stringent regula on and compliance requirements, power and u li es firms are leveraging data and analy cs to stay ahead." - Survey respondents Disrup on: the results and why they ma er Neil Pennington, thought leader in innova on through decentralised technology " What these disrup ve technologies have in common is a recogni on that the future is much more local and decentralised than ever before and the days of the domina on of centralised large-scale assets, systems and processes are numbered. The future is one where autonomous, intelligent devices, operate on a hyper-local basis aggrega ng up to underpin the whole system in tandem with large scale assets – whether it be solar, hydrogen, IoT, renewables, or EVs. This is driven by a shi in society. In our world people are interconnected, iden fying with communi es never previously imagined; individualisa on and a demand for fair treatment is paramount. With such a seismic shi in the individual and community, the incumbent technologies, IT systems and business models that exist today are increasingly unfit for purpose." P R E S E N T S NETWORK / 32 / MARCH 2018