Duncan Botting, ABB UK’s head of technology & business development, continues his series on grid technology with a look at NMS.
Research, Development and Deployment (RD&D) reached an all-time low during 2005 in the electricity networks industry, following 15 years of privatisation and ‘efficiency’ measures. This resulted in an almost complete loss of knowledge of how to do RD&D in a modern context.
The regulator, the Office of Gas and Electricity Markets (OFGEM), identified a need to bring back innovative thinking to combat the huge technical challenge faced by the industry following a major policy initiative by the UK Government to increase Distributed Generation (DG) and Renewable Energy Sources (RES). OFGEM outlined a new incentive in the last Distribution Price Review called the Innovation Funding Initiative – this was designed to kickstart RD&D activity in Distribution Network Operators (DNO) to rise to the challenge of the new policy objectives.
Following nearly two-and-a-half years of planning, ABB pioneered a strategic partnership with the Engineering and Physical Science Research Council (EPSRC – the government department looking after energy research), EDF Energy and Scottish Power DNOs.
This partnership was completed by the selection of seven of the top universities in the specialised field of network RD&D – Imperial College London, University of Strathclyde, University of Manchester, University of Bath, University of Edinburgh, Loughborough University and Durham University.
The partnership, operating under the name of AURA NMS (Automated Regional Active Network Management) was formed to tackle one of the most complex problems facing the electricity network industry, that is: how to integrate efficiently, economically and reliably the increased levels of DG and RES into ageing distribution networks.
Much research has been completed at a paper research level into the different approaches that could make a large impact in this area. One of those is the subject of Active Network Management (ANM). Distribution networks have traditionally been operating since their inception based on their expected peak ‘distribution’ of electricity from the National Grid to end-users who connect load to the system. Once designed and implemented, the network only changes if a fault or maintenance occurs, and is said to be ‘Passive’.
The partnership decided to launch a project to understand the advantages of taking the distribution network from a ‘Passive’ to an ‘Actively Managed Network’. This meant applying a ‘real’ trial of the ideas to the network.
This is a new challenge to all the parties involved and the desire to prove many concepts in this project is high. Topics to be investigated and researched within the context of ANM are: Pre-emptive and reactive reconfiguration; constraint management; use of energy storage from wind farms in the context of a distribution network; and many other topics that cover both planning and operations.
These research principles will result in new applications and product configurations to meet the challenges described. The project is ambitious in its aims, but has some of the best people in the business working on detailed packages to deliver results. The project started in October 2006 and will continue for three years - culminating in a one of the most advanced ‘real’ test networks in the world for ANM.
ABB looks forward to collaborating with our partners in this exciting and cutting-edge research project.