Smarter Grid Solutions (SGS) is to provide active network management in a project looking to free up network capacity for over 2GW of clean energy assets and save networks over £250 million.
The QUEST project – a partnership between Electricity North West, National Grid ESO and Schneider Electric – will see SGS’ Distributed Energy Resource Management Systems (DERMS) software used to create a fully coordinated, overarching system to manage voltage and balance centralised and decentralised energy control systems.
The project will enable optimised management of network capacity for the development and connection of low carbon generation and new load demand, with the capability to be rolled out to other UK and international energy providers.
Dan Randles, head of network innovation at Electricity North West, said the project – which has been awarded £8 million through the Network Innovation Competition – has the potential to “support the management of increasingly complex distribution networks as we move further to whole system solutions and as our daily lives and energy consumption habits change”.
It marks a milestone for SGS, which is now supplying its DERMS products to all six of the UK’s distribution network operators (DNOs) as well as working on projects in the US, Australia, Canada, Germany and India.
In August 2020, the Thames Valley Live Lab project, a collaboration between SGS, O2 and Siemens, went live, with solar PV, electric vehicle charge points and other flexible electric equipment being monitored and managed at local authority facilities.
Graham Ault, executive director at Smarter Grid Solutions said the QUEST project will deliver a “groundbreaking integrated control system”, with some of the features of the project – for example interoperabiltiy between customer equipment – being “crucial for the development of an efficient, clean and secure electricity system”.
