A radical new approach to managing green energy has seen UK Power Networks’ Distribution System Operator (DSO) get an additional 160GWh of renewable power for customers’ homes.
The energy boost, enough to power a town the size of Ipswich for a month, was made by proactively managing generation connected to the network and opening up more opportunities for it to export onto the network.
UK Power Networks’ DSO is the only network operator in the country to have a team dedicated to managing distributed energy resources in its control room.
The network periodically restricts how much power generators can export onto the network so it can safely conduct essential maintenance work. However detailed analysis undertaken by the DSO Operations team has been able to safely unlock thousands more hours for generation to export, enabling renewable generators to maximise their uptime, revenue, and contribution to the clean energy transition.
Advances the company has made in day-ahead forecasting through its specialist DSO Data Science team means it is able to safely allow more energy to export. For example, it uses day-ahead forecasts to dynamically manage the potential restrictions with an aim to maximise the time generators can use the network.
This proactive approach not only supports renewable energy producers but also ensures a stable and reliable energy supply for homes and businesses across the UK.
Steve Backhouse, DSO operations manager at UK Power Networks, said: “As a DSO, we aim to provide excellent service to our customers. We are no longer in a world where we can connect and forget, our focus now is on connecting and managing. This project is typical of the work that has enabled us as a DSO to deliver real benefits to our customers to date.”
Vicki Andrews, portfolio manager at Lightsource bp, said: “As a business we have seen a considerable economic impact because of these changes. Specifically, a significant outage was planned, this would’ve impacted two of the sites we manage but through day ahead forecasting and the flexible connection, we were able to drastically minimise the impact this had on our business and thus a number of other stakeholders benefitted from this improvement.”