The UK’s largest electricity supplier, Octopus Energy, has joined forces with National Grid Electricity Distribution (NGED) and other industry partners to help speed the grid connection process.
At an industry event led by NGED, Octopus Energy and 35 customer developers and industry partners discussed current challenges with the grid connection process for distributed energy projects and how AI tools can address these concerns.
NGED has been collaborating with Octopus Energy and Octopus’s technology partner Voltquant to develop an AI tool for testing grid connectivity solutions, which was demonstrated at the event. Voltquant’s AI tool uses a large language model to evaluate the potential success of solutions. The event identified several key issues in the grid connections space, including managing risk and difficulties in accessing data, and the future work of the industry partners at the event will focus on addressing these challenges.
Following an engaged discussion of the issues at hand, NGED and Octopus Energy will share the event’s outcomes with the wider energy industry in hopes of helping speed up the grid connections queue.
Amanda Le Brocq, director of connections at National Grid Electricity Distribution, said: “This was our first time holding an event of this kind to accelerate distribution connections. The event helped us to deepen our understanding of the challenges our customers face in the distribution connections space, and we will use the great ideas and valuable feedback to improve how we engage in the future.”
Max Forshaw, grid transformation lead at Octopus Energy, added: “It is fantastic to see such an innovative approach to tackling the connections crisis. Whilst top-down reform is important, finding ways to maximise distribution network capacity by crowding in new renewable projects will be crucial to achieving the Clean Power 2030 target.”
Nikita Dabizha, CEO and founder of Voltquant, said: “At Voltquant, we believe that AI is the catalyst for revolutionising energy infrastructure — solving real-world challenges, delivering actionable insights, and redefining clean energy connections.”
Grid connections queue remains a major issue
The current state of the grid connections process in the UK has been of increased focus to the energy industry of late, partially owing to high-level discussions on connections reform.
The National Energy System Operator (NESO) published the consultation questions for its Connection Reforms project last month in an effort to address the “clear and urgent need to reform” the connections process and clear the ever-growing connections queue, suggesting that reformed connections process prioritises a combination of project “readiness” and “strategic alignment”.
In its own attempt to test potential solutions to grid connection problems, the NESO has created a Grid Connection Simulation Tool. This tool solves one of the concerns raised at the Octopus Energy and NGED event, by providing a secure platform in which simulations can be created with accurate data without revealing sensitive information.
