Jon Berry, Data and Digitalisation Manager, Western Power Distribution
As the UK looks towards achieving net zero, the relationship between customers and energy is changing. With customers more engaged than ever in matters relating to energy and decarbonisation, households are expecting more from their energy network. At Western Power Distribution (WPD), we are seeing growing numbers of connection requests for large low carbon technology (LCT) assets like wind turbines and solar panels, as well as household technologies such as heat pumps and electric vehicle chargers.
This demand is set to increase further, according to our forecasts which predict that, by 2050, we will see more than 12 million electric vehicles and 6 million heat pumps connected to our network. However, the big switchover must not come at the cost of a big switch off, with the onus on networks to ensure that customers’ lights are kept on.
While we welcome the fact that so many customers want to make the switch to LCTs, this shift poses a potential challenge for network operators moving forward, especially in an environment where investment plans are coming under pressure. It is our role as a distribution network operator (DNO) to help customers make the switch by making the connections process as hassle free as possible. Being smarter and making greater use of data and digitalisation will therefore play an important role in delivering the number of new connections required for net zero.
Digitalisation will mean a change to how we develop and operate the network to deliver a more cost effective and efficient service for customers. There are currently millions of assets that connect to the network, many of which also keep it running; this number is set to boom in coming years. By using sensors and control equipment to collect even more live data about these assets, we can gain greater insight into how they and their users operate, helping us to better manage our network.
Data is important as it gives us an oversight of how customers currently interact with the network, allowing us to get a better understanding of current and future energy usage. At WPD, we have led the way with this ‘data first’ mindset. In 2020, we published our first ever Digitalisation Strategy and, over the past 18 months, have implemented and built on this. By using network data and machine learning, we can conduct long term forecasting of LCT assets to predict the number connecting to our network over the coming years. These forecasts identify areas where reinforcement and support are needed, allowing us to invest ahead of need to ensure that customers wanting LCT connections in future can connect to the network as simply as possible.
Digitalisation will also mean that we can rectify faults more efficiently by using smart meter data to understand when customers lose supply and enable us to reconnect them quickly. In reality, this means that we can identify and fix network faults before the customer has had the chance to pick up the phone. We are also analysing historic data to determine how we can reconfigure the current network to reduce the impact of faults in areas which show that reinforcement is needed. Data can also play a role in identifying and supporting our most vulnerable customers by analysing energy usage. This will help WPD deliver its pledge to support more than 600,000 vulnerable customers every year by providing them with smart energy action plans and helping them to save money.
While we have already made huge progress in recent years, we won’t stop there. To fully harness the potential of energy data, we need more collaborative working. WPD has opened up large sections of its data, making it accessible to government, community energy groups, businesses and the wider energy industry. We hope that this will help create an inclusive energy data community, where together we can pool our resources and find tangible solutions for customers that support the net zero transition.
Data and digitalisation is helping to revolutionise the relationship between customers and the energy network, from reducing the number of power cuts they experience to allowing them to charge their electric vehicles. A smarter network is a more cost-effective network, which means that, as a business, we can invest in a more efficient way, bringing down customer costs in the long term. While for most people, net zero is about tangible assets like wind turbines and heat pumps, a hidden driver of net zero will be the data analysts working behind the scenes to examine how we use the energy network and looking for smarter, more efficient ways to deliver decarbonisation solutions.