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John Parsons BEAMA

What is a Smart Distribution Grid?

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Grid of the future

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3 Drivers

• Climate change

• Smart technology

• Finance

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Decarbonisation of energy supply

• Switch of load from fossil fuel to electricity and renewables– Electric vehicles– Heat pumps– Wind– Nuclear / CSC– PV– CHP

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Smart devices and communications

• Increasingly every device has intelligence– Smart meters– Smart appliances– IPv6 and the Internet of everything

• Communications media becoming available for all applications– R.F. / PLC / twisted pair / fibre– Broadband

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Finance

• Need to rebuild generation capacity

• Need to rebuild TS/DS

• Can’t afford business as usual

• The role of the smart grid is to:– Avoid generation capacity– Avoid reinforcement of TS and DS– Increase the utilisation of the Grid

• Make use of the smart technology

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Features of Smart Grid

• New advanced technology for LV Grid

• Improved operation of LV Grid

• Demand management– Control of load – Control of generation

• Data and communications

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Issues for the UK• Security – the more powerful you make the grid the more this

is an issue

• Does the UK energy market model make us an outlier or a leader?

• Smart metering – can it be designed to support smart grids without halting the roll out?

• Development of new players and businesses – energy services/aggregators

• Demand response:

– How much flexibility in load/generation

– Market based or remote control, manual or automatic