THREE Scottish and Southern Electricity Networks (SSEN) Distribution innovation projects have been successful in their application for funding from the latest round of Ofgem’s Strategic Innovation Fund (SIF).
The three projects – FastTrack, 3D-AR, and I-LAD – have each been awarded just under £500,000 to progress to the second ‘Alpha’ stage of development.
The I-LAD (Innovating Losses Analysis and Detection) project targets reductions in electricity losses via theft or accounting problems. The earlier Discovery phase of this project confirmed these losses were costly, with the impact being borne by bill-payers. There are also safety concerns arising from the means people employ when illegally stealing power from the network. During the Alpha phase, I-LAD will tackle this problem, by ‘revolutionising’ the outdated ways currently used to track these losses. These include the development of smart detection technology and better ways of data-sharing.
FastTrack is an AI-powered solution which has the power to simulate the effect connections requests would have on key bits of network equipment, from primary substations to Grid Supply Points. It takes into consideration network capacity, existing load levels, and relevant external factors to provide a consolidated view of future demand. SSEN said these perspectives help teams tasked with planning future networks make the best-informed decisions. The target for the end of the Alpha Phase is to establish the business value and technical feasibility of the project’s core features, with the aim of having a fully-deployed product ready by the conclusion of a potential future Beta phase.
Meanwhile, the 3D-AR (Dynamic Data-Driven Asset Rating) project also harnesses the power of smart tech to increase the scope for using networks in the most-efficient way. It employs ‘Dynamic Rating’ to provide assessments of the capacity of power lines in real time. These insights give the scope to operate them closer to their full potential, while still considering the varying impact of temperatures and the weather. The Alpha funding will provide the team with resources to assess how the network can be more easily and widely assessed. This could provide more capacity for customers and provide SSEN with another means of meeting demand, in addition to capital infrastructure investment and via its DSO (Distribution System Operations) functions.
The project partners are SIA Partners UK PLC, Imperial College London.
These three projects have been successful at the Strategic Innovation Fund’s cycle ‘Alpha’ phase. Ofgem’s Strategic Innovation Fund is delivered in partnership with Innovate UK.
Frank Clifton, innovation manager at SSEN Distribution, said, “These three successful projects all have one key thing in common; they employ the smartest, most leading-edge technology in the pursuit of making real-world improvements to the safety, value, and the efficiency of the electricity system we all depend on. At SSEN Distribution, we’re enthusiastic about innovating, but we’re equally committed to doing so with a clear purpose, to ensure the ideas we develop provide the basis for the delivery of social value and real-world benefits for our customers and communities.
“We’re grateful to Ofgem’s Strategic Innovation Fund for recognising this ethos in its approval of our applications, and along with the excellent support and insights from our various project partners, we recommit ourselves once again to the further development of these viable, practical, and innovative solutions.”
