On 16 May CurrENT hosted a two-hour online workshop discussing the issues facing deployment of innovative grid technologies at the DSO level and solutions to alleviate them. CurrENT recognises that introduction of new technologies can pose a challenge to DSOs, especially at the pace that is currently being demanded due to decarbonisaton goals. CurrENT recently published a first of its kind ‘handbook’, Recommendations for the deployment of DSO projects. This handbook aims to be a living, breathing document and engagement with industry stakeholders is essential to ensure it can remain up to date and impactful for operators across the whole sector. In this workshop, CurrENT presented the paper, and gathered feedback from DSOs in order to improve future editions. Several DSOs; SSE, UKPN, Counties Energy, Elektro Gorenjska presented their own case studies, focusing on their specific needs and solutions, as well as their experiences with the implementation of innovative grid technologies into the grid. In addition to this, speakers from the European Commission, EU DSO Entity, and Eurelectric provided broader perspectives.

One common theme linking the presentations on the deployment of innovative grid technologies was the ability of these technologies to unlock more transmission capabilities on the grid while using most of the existing resources and infrastructure. The deployment of innovative grid technologies are often more cost effective than traditional enforcement solutions and far more sustainable.

 Key Takeaways

Mark Norton, SmartWires and Chair of CurrENT’s DSO Working Group, Presented ‘Recommendations for the deployment of DSO projects’, he drew attention to the persistent challenges facing deployment of DSO technologies and listed some of CurrENT’s recommendations for how to overcome these challenges.

Ricardo Renedo Williams, Team Leader at DG ENER European Commission, presented the high-level perspective from the European Commission and the steps and actions it has taken to facilitate the deployment of innovative grid technologies.

Pat Howe, Former Senior Project Manager at SSE, presented use case Advanced Conductor deployed from Fort William to Fort Augustus and showed the benefits of their choice of ACCC – Monte Carlo Conductor which doubled the line capacity while needing to only replace 3% of the towers.

Andrew Burton, Innovation Project Lead at UKPN, presented use case Modular Power Flow Control, specifically using SmartWires Power Line Guardian and Power Guardian and how it enabled them to cost effectively increase line capacity with the need the need more disruptive construction.

Moonis Vegdani, Chief Strategy and Transformation Officer at Counties Energy, Presented use case Active Energy Orchestration, and drew attention to the importance of cyber security as the grid becomes more digitalised.  

Lenart Ribnikar, Data Scientist at Elektro Gorenjska, with Andrej Souvent, Chief Executive Officer at Operato, Presented use case Dynamic Thermal Rating and their results showed that deploying Dynamic Thermal Rating can increase the loadability of transmission lines by up 1.7x.

Arsim Bytyqi, Senior Coordination at EU DSO Entity, discussed ways to improve Knowledge Sharing among DSOs. Arsim focused on the need for improvements in areas relating to aspects that are necessary for the development of the distribution grid, such as Observability and Controllability of the grid or Efficient Smart Infrastructure and Collaborative Network Planning, a more collaborative approach is needed which prioritises engagement with relevant stakeholders and places innovation as essential to meeting the DSO future needs. 

Oliver Franz, VP of Associations at E.ON, Chair of the Distribution and Market Facilitation Committee at Eurelectric, presented some of the key lessons learned on Digitialisation for the DSOs. As Eurelectric is responsible for energy networks across multiple different European countries they must deal with a tension between standardisation and bringing a technology that has worked in one country’s distribution system to another, hinder the fast tracking of some technologies. Despite this, 20% of E.ON’s spending goes towards digitalisation, this is to increase the amount of observability at second level sub stations and low voltage systems. Increasing observability is crucial for integrating more renewables as they begin to come online in greater numbers over the coming years.