Two of the UK’s biggest energy firms have secured around £1 million each in funding from Ofgem’s Strategic Innovation Fund (SIF).
The SIF is a joint effort from the energy regulator and Innovate UK, which works to provide funding to projects seeking to improve the grid to hasten the clean energy transition. SSEN has been awarded £1 million for two of its projects, SeaChange and Nature4Networks.
The SeaChange project involves the development of a “Navigating Energy Transitions” (NET) tool, which will help ports and others in the shipping industry plan their most viable routes to decarbonisation. The tool will also help SSEN see the predicted electrical load from UK ports – which can reach as high as 4TWh per year – in order to appropriately plan network and grid reinforcements. This new funding from the SIF will allow SeaChange to assess the potential growth in electricity consumption in the areas surrounding its target ports.
Gemma Ennis, who is the project manager for SeaChange at SSEN, said: “The maritime sector is pivotal to trade and vital to emerging industries such as offshore renewables. Ports also provide lifeline services to island communities, and this project will bring everyone together to navigate us towards a net-zero future.”
SSEN’s second project, Nature4Networks, seeks to understand how nature-based solutions, such as increased hedgerow planting, can help protect network infrastructure against the increasingly extreme weather caused by climate change. These solutions not only boost the resilience of the network, but also increase sustainability and biodiversity in areas they are installed.
The SIF funding will allow Nature4Networks to carry out advanced feasibility studies to understand how these solutions could be rolled out across the UK’s wider energy network and thus protect infrastructure and wildlife.
Dot Revill, the project manager for Nature4Networks at SSEN, said: “SSEN is a leader in nature restoration in the areas we serve, and we’re committed to ensuring the continued resilience of our network in the face of a changing climate. What marks Nature4Networks out is the way it can help us combine both goals successfully.”
“This new funding will allow us to take the principles we’ve already established in the earlier phase and do the necessary work to plan for how we can put in place nature-based solutions at scale.”
SP Energy Networks celebrates its own SIF win
Meanwhile, SP Energy Networks has secured £914,130 of SIF funding in order to progress two of its projects. The Equiflex and LVOE projects seek to address key challenges facing the electricity network and help to remove barriers from the flexibility services market.
The Equiflex project aims to promote equal access to flexibility services. Alongside partner organisations from across Scotland, Equiflex will help stakeholders build a toolkit to advise stakeholders on how they can harness opportunities and overcome barriers to enter the flexibility market.
The LVOE project aims to assist with grid balancing on the low-voltage network as more households shift to low-carbon technologies such as electric vehicles (EVs) and heat pumps. LVOE will explore how the use of a new low voltage power device called the LV Optimiser, can help balance the low voltage network and thus remove the requirements for multi-million pound network upgrades.
Eddie Mulholland, director of processes and technology at SP Energy Networks, said: “Being able to move these projects forward, thanks to the Strategic Innovation Fund, will help us explore the feasibility of rolling these projects out, not just across our own network, but the wider electricity network.”