Project duration: Ongoing
Regen has been working with electricity network operators to help maintain a positive relationship with those companies that own and operate the generation assets connected to the distribution network. We work in partnership with Western Power Distribution, the leading network operator in this area, to deliver the quarterly forum.
The project creates an opportunity for the control room staff from the network operator to engage directly with generation assets owners in a constructive forum, that is based on actions and progress over time. This has improved communication and increases understanding between the parties, creating positive outcomes. An estimated 10 GW of assets connected to the distribution network is represented at the forum, with solar PV, onshore wind, hydro, energy storage, anaerobic digestion and gas peakers included.
Key areas of work have included:
- Creation of a generator portal for owners and operators to use for site-specific outage notifications
- Internal work by WPD internally to improve processes and outage planning to reduce the length and severity of network constraints and outages on distributed generation customers
- Improving communication format and frequency with generators on outages and constraints
- Investigating technical options for mitigating outage impact (e.g. new pole-mounted line isolator)
- Estimating the lost generation (MWh) and cost implication (£) from outages.
Regen is an independent facilitator of the forum and takes responsibility for chairing, organising the agenda, writing up meeting notes, contact list management, invites to the sector, and specific project reports (e.g. lost generation).
The WPD forum webpage is available here.
The WPD generator portal is available here.
If you are interested in finding out more about this work, please contact Olly Frankland ofrankland@regen.co.uk.
