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NETWORK / 35 / MARCH 2018 of RRES is forecast to deliver bene ts of some £360m by 2030, compared with £80.2m of direct/indirect savings to gas network users and consumers," comments Machan. "RRES o€ ers a range of advantages over current excava- tion methods. For example, al- though the introduction of core and vac has greatly improved roadworks e… ciency, it has limited use where utilities are congested or where the road/ path surfaces are not within speci cation. Using its sensors and so‡ touch tooling, RRES will operate in a much wider range of scenarios allowing un- hindered infrastructure access, so once you start an operation you can nish it rather than having to revert to conven- tional means or move location. When compared to traditional manual excavation the RRES particularly o€ ers both environ- mental and safety advantages, removing the operative from the excavation site and eliminat- ing 'cable strikes' for instance, which despite the term, can be the operative uncovering a cable already in poor condition or at fault, not them striking it." Driving innovation Machan believes that Ofgem's NIC funding and its RIIO initia- tive have both played a key role in helping to drive innovation across the gas and electricity networks. He stated: "The NIC funding allows us to think much bigger in terms of introducing industry level change, complementing In response to the ever-progressive technological challenges that the power industry faces, OMICRON – a global company which provides innovative products for the testing and monitoring of assets – has purpose-built a new service and training centre in the Midlands. Area sales manager David Brazier explains the need for this investment. During the last seven years, OMICRON Electronics UK Ltd has seen a major growth in the requirement for training within the fi eld of electrical testing. Over 200 electrical engineers passed through the UK training academy last year and due to increasing demand we needed to expand our training facility. We now have the capacity to run a greater number and variety of courses in our state-of-the-art training rooms and workshop – with full-scale test objects. Designed by engineers, for engineers, OMICRON Academy training courses are built around real testing situations, allowing delegates to gain knowledge of assets and applications, fully utilise OMICRON test equipment and become confi dent in applying effi cient test procedures to interpret test and measurement results. Different types of scheduled and customised trainings are available, associated to both primary and secondary products. To fi nd out more, please contact the UK training team: +44 1785 848100 academy.uk@omicronenergy.com www.omicronenergy.com I N D U S T RY I N S I G H T OMICRON opens new service and training centre the NIA mechanism that facili- tates a network portfolio of pro- jects delivering business level bene ts across all our activities. Without the NIC mechanism, it's quite hard to imagine how a GDN/DNO could attempt change on this scale. "I think it's fair to say that Ofgem's RIIO initiative has been critical in stimulating R&D activities in the networks. It was an inspired bit of thinking. We appear to be at a point of tran- sitioning from an industry that was being pulled to adopt mod- ern technology and methods to one that is actively pushing the boundaries in some technol- ogy areas. Innovation can then start to shape network strategy. When network investments be- ing proposed come with a sound business case showing how nancially, a bit of new think- ing can beat the existing base method, then everybody wins." Collaboration between gas and electricity network opera- tors is something that's already happening and is welcomed by Machan. "When we submitted RRES as an NIC bid, we did so with broad cross-utility support. The development of an open source tooling methodology hopefully means RRES will quickly ex- pand on its range of operational functions from those initially available to things like electric- ity cable splicing and repair and water main leak detection and repair." The RRES project will start in April and will run for three years.