The distribution network operator (DNO) told Utility Week that, over the last 10 years, the reliability of the power network has “effectively doubled”, with the number of customer interruptions and customer minutes lost “half what they used to be”. Head of engineering Steve Cox said: “…if we look forward another 10 years, the challenge is how we halve that again.”
In its business plan, Electricity North West proposes to improve network reliability (measured by customer interruptions) and availability (measured by customer minutes lost) by 20 per cent from its 2012 level by 2019.
The importance of supply reliability increases as customers adopt low-carbon technologies and their reliance on electrical power becomes “ever greater”, he added. “So we intend to further develop network automation and effectively self-healing power grids, where the reliability of supply improves even further.”
He continued: “Deploying some of the techniques developed by Electricity North West, such as the CLASS project, Capacity to Customers, Respond and Smart Street, will bring tens of millions of benefits to customers in reduced network charges. This technology is absolutely critical to unlocking the potential of those techniques.
“The techniques themselves are very innovative and very useful, but if you can’t deploy them at full network scale, then they will not generate the benefits. You need an Advance Distribution Management (ADM) system, such as the one provided by Schneider .”
ENW announced on Monday morning that it would embark on a three-year project with Schneider Electric to look at how a smarter grid can help the network become “multi-directional and automated”, allowing it to use digital communications to “detect and react to local changes in usage”.
Schneider Electric said it “hoped” to roll out to the rest of the UK, but this would require significant investment in DNO ADM systems and would be unlikely to happen for a “number of years”.