Innovation Award
This category aimed to celebrate the ambition, creativity and determination of utilities as they push the boundaries of collaborative innovation. The breadth of entries showed how seriously the sector is taking this obligation and how much progress is being made.
The judges were particularly pleased to see such a focus on decarbonisation, protecting the environment and supporting vulnerable customers. The projects that really stood out were those that were able to draw a clear link to outcomes to achieve these aims.
The focus on collaboration was also welcome, with a range of partners bringing new ways of working and thinking to projects led by utilities. The judges were keen to stress that they wanted to see more projects that go above and beyond regulatory requirements and also wanted to see evidence of a digital culture really embedding itself in the sector.
The finalists
ESO, Capgemini & Wipro - Demand Flexibility Service
National Grid ESO, SP Energy Networks, and TNEI Consultancy - Distributed ReStart
SP Energy Networks - LV Engine
SSEN, ElectraLink, and CrowdCharge - Project Skyline
Utilita Energy - Life with Power
Yorkshire Water with Stantec, Stormharvester, and Technolog - Delivering a smart wastewater network
Innovation Award
This category aimed to celebrate the ambition, creativity and determination of utilities as the push the boundaries of collaborative innovation. The breadth of entries showed how seriously the sector is taking this obligation and how much progress is being made.
The judges were particularly pleased to see such a focus on decarbonisation, protecting the environment and supporting vulnerable customers. The projects that really stood out where those that were able to draw a clear link to outcomes to achieve these aims.
The focus on collaboration was also welcome, with a range of partners bringing new ways of working and thinking to projects led by utilities. The judges were keen to stress that they wanted to see more projects that go above and beyond regulatory requirements and also wanted to see evidence of a digital culture really embedding itself in the sector.
The finalists
ESO, Capgemini & Wipro - Demand Flexibility Service
National Grid ESO, SP Energy Networks, and TNEI Consultancy - Distributed ReStart
SP Energy Networks - LV Engine
SSEN, ElectraLink, and CrowdCharge - Project Skyline
Utilita Energy - Life with Power
Yorkshire Water with Stantec, Stormharvester, and Technolog - Delivering a smart wastewater network
Anglian Water and the Safe Smart Systems partnership - Creating an automated, connected utility system for future generations
Despite significant inroads, the UK still leaks 3 billion litres of water a day. We face a serious risk that parts of the country will run out of water within 20 years if we don’t find different ways to operate. Safe Smart Systems (SSS) is an Ofwat Innovation funded project embedding long-term operational resilience to the water industry, building the utility of the future through embracing and adopting AI to create self-healing systems. The project is bringing the future to life today and evidencing a path for others to follow within the world’s largest smart water network.
National Grid ESO, Capgemini & Wipro - Demand Flexibility Service
Amidst a challenging winter for energy supply throughout Europe, National Grid Electricity System Operator (ESO) united industry in a collaborative effort to scale and launch a nationwide Demand Flexibility Service in just four short months. The scheme was a huge success. A simple-to-use service that helped Great Britain get through tight supply and demand periods, rewarded participants for flexing demand, and accelerated the achievement of net zero targets. Between November 2022 and March 2023, 1.6 million households and businesses voluntarily switched their electricity usage to off-peak periods – reducing demand by 3.3GWh overall. That’s enough to power 200,000 households for a year.
National Grid ESO, SP Energy Networks, and TNEI Consultancy - Distributed ReStart
The Distributed ReStart innovation project was a partnership between National Grid Electricity System Operator (ESO), SP Energy Networks (SPEN) and TNEI (a specialist energy consultancy). The conventional approach to electricity system restoration (black start) uses large fossil fuel power stations – achieving net zero requires more diverse capability and needs to include greener distributed energy resources (DERs) like wind/solar/hydro/battery for restoration. The project was a world-first initiative that successfully tackled significant technical, organisational, and commercial challenges to deliver restoration from DERs. Distributed ReStart demonstrated that renewable DERs can be used to support faster restoration, improve resilience and lower costs for consumers.
SP Energy Networks - LV Engine
SP Energy Networks’ LV Engine is a flagship £8.3 million innovation project funded via Ofgem’s Network Innovation Competition. The project involves a globally innovative network trial of smart transformers to enable the connection of low carbon technologies (LCTs) whilst enhancing value for money for customers. Conventionally, electricity networks provide only alternating current (AC) supply. However, LCTs operate on a direct current (DC) voltage which requires conversion from AC. The LV Engine solution provides a LV DC supply to customers for the first time, while electricity energy is intelligently shared between AC and DC supply, offering better power quality and efficiency.
SSEN, ElectraLink, and CrowdCharge - Project Skyline
Project Skyline brought together Distribution Network Operators (DNOs), the Energy Innovation Centre (EIC), ElectraLink, CrowdCharge and many stakeholders from the motor industry for a first-of-its-kind innovation project.
Skyline succeeded in creating a data-driven system and process for DNOs to receive early sight of electric vehicle (EV) charging demand on the low voltage electricity network to support planning, investment and to better understand the uptake of EVs.
The project’s immediate outcome was a 4.3:1 return on investment and an enduring service currently under discussion that will directly support transport decarbonisation and cost-effective infrastructure planning for net zero.
Utilita Energy - Life with Power
Life without heat or power is unacceptable. Faced with industry shortfalls causing unnecessary self-disconnections during one of the hardest times for low-income households, it was time for Utilita to come to the rescue. With 95% of its Pay As You Go households already smart-enabled, Utilita’s innovations have meant the difference between staying on supply or not for a large majority of its customer base.
Utilita has innovated two new and unique features in the last 12 months to offset industry shortfalls and keep its valued customers on supply on more than three million occasions, avoiding the disruption of a disconnection.
Yorkshire Water with Stantec, Stormharvester, and Technolog - Delivering a smart wastewater network
Yorkshire Water’s £2 million Smart Wastewater Network pilot is demonstrating the ability of 'smart' technologies and Artificial Intelligence (AI) to revolutionise the operation of the sewer network.
With increasing pressure on the water industry to improve service and reduce its impact on the environment, new approaches to the management of wastewater are required.
This project is using a blend of new technologies and AI to provide actionable insight allowing for a pre-emptive response to emerging issues in order to prevent sewer flooding and pollution.
Ultimately this approach will enable a revolutionary, autonomous, systemic approach to the management of wastewater, from sink-to-sea.