Jonathan Brearley, executive director of systems and networks and Peter Bingham, chief engineer, at Ofgem, visited Electricity North West and heard about the engineering leadership coming from the region.
The pair attended the firm’s Preston depot to learn about two of its innovative schemes, CLASS and Smart Street as well as its Leading the North West to Zero Carbon plan.
Peter Emery, chief executive at Electricity North West headed up the day which included a number of presentations and demonstrations involving senior leadership team members.
“It was a pleasure to host two senior figures from Ofgem,” said Mr Emery.
“We proactively arranged the visit as we wanted to demonstrate in more detail two of our innovative schemes that will be key to ensuring the North West is ready for decarbonisation as we all use more and more renewably-generated electricity.
“Under Ofgem’s regulations, we have embraced innovation and have rolled out revolutionary engineering projects that will significantly benefit our customers now and in the future.
“We’re embracing change, investing in our network and want to deliver the best for our customers.”
By combining innovative technology with existing assets, Smart Street makes networks and customers’ appliances perform more efficiently and makes it easier to adopt low carbon technologies onto the electricity network.
Smart Street has proved that controlling voltage on a low voltage network brings a number of benefits to customers. It can reduce electricity bills by up to £70 every year, reduce carbon emissions and will provide more flexible solutions to help Electricity North West connect low carbon technologies to the network – all without impacting power quality.
The award-winning CLASS (Customer Load Active System Services) project uses innovative voltage control to reduce demand for electricity without customers noticing a difference to their service.
CLASS is a low-cost solution which uses voltage control to manage electricity consumption at peak times.
By installing cutting edge ‘voltage controllers’ in substations through CLASS, it could save customers in the North West around £100 million over the next 25 years.
Jonathan Brearley, executive director at Ofgem for systems and networks, said: “It’s been fascinating to see how Electricity North West is innovating to help cut electricity bills and carbon emissions from the network.
“These two projects, both of which Ofgem’s regulation has helped to fund, demonstrate how optimising voltage can make household electrical appliances work more efficiently, help to plug renewable technologies into the grid and manage supply and demand across the system.
“Innovation projects like this could result in huge savings on electricity bills and will be crucial if the UK is to meet its target of achieving net zero carbon emissions by 2050 whilst keeping costs down for consumers.
“Ofgem will shortly be launching its consultation on its “RIIO2” regulatory framework for electricity distribution companies to build on the considerable progress made so far in moving to a ‘zero carbon grid’.”
