The capabilities enabled by Lucy Electric’s technology – load profiling, advanced fault detection, monitoring of power quality – bode well for the transition from DNO to DSO, where networks will take “an active and engaging role with smaller generation sources and consumers”, Hina Sharma, product manager at Lucy Electric, says.

They will also enable optimisation of the network to allow flexibility services to operate, potentially cutting down on the need for reinforcement. “We must make the most of the infrastructure we have, and good, smart flexibility services will enable us to make savings. If we use AI, we can find optimal solutions, getting more out of our existing network even as we invest in it.”

Load profiling data will be combined with information from other sources – about weather patterns and asset age, for example – to enable efficient asset replacement, Sharma says.

These factors promise a future with a much greater awareness of what is going on LV networks, as SSEN predicted. “Most of the UK LV network is underground in urban areas,” Sharma points out. “With buried cables, without LV monitoring, there is no visibility of what’s happening.”

SSEN makes the move

Lucy Electric technology is indeed enabling SSEN to make the move from DNO to distribution system operator. “What was previously a termination point on the network has the potential to be a beginning,” Phillip Clarke, innovation project manager at SSEN, says. “Low-voltage monitoring is helping us know what we need to know in the transition to DSO.”

As well as trialling GridKey and Synaps, Clarke is currently running an Ofgem Network Innovation Allowance (NIA) project about power quality and the impact low-carbon technologies have on the power provided to customers. “There is greater potential for imbalance on the network, so the NIA project is trying to understand those challenges before there is a failure. We want to be able to nip any issues in the bud, so that customers can continue to decarbonise.

“Being in a situation where we have to say to the customer, ‘you can’t decarbonise your home because our network isn’t robust enough’ isn’t a situation any DNO wants to be in.” That means being able to accurately forecast capacity, power quality, health of the network, and faults.

Low-voltage monitoring could also be used to manage flex services. “There have been studies about using low-voltage grid monitors for active network management,” explains Tharangan Rajavel, innovation project engineer, SSEN. This opens up the possibility of distributed energy resources one day being controlled by such technologies, he says.

For now, SSEN is busy deploying a total of 25,000 low-voltage devices on the network as part of ED-2. The technology is enabling a shift to a much more proactive maintenance approach, Sharma says. “Being able to proactively understand where a fault is before it causes a problem is a huge benefit.

“In 10 years’ time, we will be managing our networks in a very different way. Today’s fault detection technologies are just the start of that change.”

For more information about Lucy Electric low-voltage monitoring technologies, contact Hina Sharma: hina.sharma@lucyelectric.com