Utility Week

UTILITY WEEK | 18TH - 24TH MAY 2018 | 21 Operations & Assets "Why go to a large supermarket 100 miles away when there's a great small local shop on your doorstep?" Opinion Paul Bircham T he only thing that is constant is change and, until recently, power networks. Power networks haven't fundamentally changed for 100 years. We still need to get power from A to B, but how we do this is changing significantly. Way back on 7 January 1890 when the first perma- nent public electricity supply in the North West began in Keswick, local generation was the key focus. Move for- ward 50 years and National Grid was linking big power stations together. Local networks were key but the focus shied to generating and transporting in bulk. There's still a need for that, but there is also a need for a "hyper local" approach, with smaller local genera- tion and more balancing at a local level. It makes no sense to feed small-scale local generation into a national system while receiving power from the other side of the country. We've all seen the endless press coverage and com- mentary about the energy industry. It paints a rather negative picture – from energy prices and network prof- its to Russian cyber-threats and the smart meter rollout. But despite these rather pessimistic views, there are some fantastic developments and promising trends that are helping transform the way energy is delivered to meet the needs of customers and businesses up and down the country. The main challenges networks face are the changing relationship with customers from passive to active, and meeting the government's energy decarbonisation chal- lenge. It's vital for both networks and customers that networks build relationships with customers to become trusted partners in providing the power we all need. By 2050, the UK is committed to achieving an 80 per cent reduction in carbon emissions. Last year, for the first time, more than half of all electricity consumed in the UK was generated from zero-carbon sources, and these new demands mean the power network and the infrastructure in place must continue to transform and adapt in new and innovative ways to ensure the power continues to flow. It's our responsibility to meet the challenges head-on by getting more out of the network we have already and reducing the need to build costly new infrastructure. To do this, we will work with customers and support peo- ple, businesses and energy producers across the north west region. And positive changes are resulting in clear benefits. Just last year the UK experienced its first coal-free day since the 1880s and a month later solar generation con- nected to distribution networks met almost a quarter of all electricity demand. This is no easy feat and it is a measure of the hard work and the smart new innova- tive ways to deliver power developed by businesses and experts across the industry. We recently set out how we are going to make this a reality and how we're going to overcome these chal- lenges in a new vision highlighting how we're going to support the changing energy landscape. From electric vehicles to community energy schemes, the report, Powering the North West's Future, outlines the key roles and responsibilities of a smarter, more flexible distribution system operator (DSO) and the technical and regulatory challenges the industry faces in making the transition to this new model. Although the active decentralised model will enable us to support the production of energy locally and directly to communities using renewable sources, it does present the need for us to transform into a smarter and more flexible power network. Our vision highlights how we can meet these future demands while ensuring bills remain affordable for our customers and supplies remain reliable. We are certain the report will inform regional and national debate about the future role of DSOs. The nature and pace of change in the North West cannot be predicted with certainty, but it is vital that we identify likely themes and priorities now so everyone in our region can face the future with confidence. DSOs will continue to be responsible for providing network capacity and will also be required to actively balance capacity minute-by-minute using real-time data and automated technology on the network. This will be achieved by establishing local markets where providers of flexibility services can sell this flexi- bility. The DSO will create this market and buy flexibility. Last month, Electricity North West began this process by calling for local businesses to offer flexibility services. To enable this transition, and to do it well, DNOs must continue our drive to become even more trusted, public-facing facilitators and advisers. This means continuing to raise awareness and understanding of our role, and helping to achieve the ambitious aims of the public, private and voluntary sectors. We've already taken our first steps on this journey and we've achieved some fantastic accomplishments. We've seen fantastic innovation in networks, and leaps and bounds in customer service and reliability – and there's more coming. Paul Bircham, commercial strategy and support director, Electricity North West

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