
UK Power Networks and Scottish and Southern ElectricityNetworks are trialling a futuristic technology designed to prevent power cuts to customer’s homes.
The project sees the electricity distribution networks
collaborate with New Zealand innovators, Lord Consulting, and UK innovators, NortechManagement Limited, in an innovation project facilitated by the EIC.
Testing of the Distribution Fault Anticipation (DFA)
technology is being carried out by UK Power Networks in the South East and East
of England as a way to spot network faults, before they interrupt people’s supplies.
The DFA-Plus device monitors voltage and current on electricity circuits and
matches any abnormal waveforms with a library of most likely causes.
The system works at high sampling rates to detect even tiny
disturbances on the network that are not usually visible using traditional
network protection devices. During testing, the technology revealed
disturbances on two separate cable terminations, up to eight weeks before they
interrupted power supplies.
Trevor Lord, LORD Consulting’s director, said:
“It has been
both our pride and pleasure to participate in the application of the DFA
technology on the UK Power Networks’ network.
The contributions to date, even at this relatively early stage of
deployment, have been very positive.”
UK Power Networks has installed nine devices, each about the
size of a small games console, at primary substations. Each one continuously
monitors an 11,000 or 33,000-volt electricity circuit up to several kilometres
long serving thousands of homes and businesses. The sites include Aldreth in
Cambridgeshire, Bungay in Suffolk, Canterbury, Chartham, New Romney, Broad Oak
and Strood in Kent. Engineers will install one more at Caddington in
Bedfordshire, and plan to order five more.
Chino Atako, senior asset engineer at UK Power Networks, said:
“The advantage of using these units is that we now have more eyes on the
network to see things we wouldn’t normally be able to see - which could enable
a quicker, cheaper, more proactive approach to fault location and repairs.
“Traditionally, repairs are carried out after a fault which
has led to customers losing supplies, but such events are preceded by pre-fault
events we cannot usually see. If we could identify these we can further
increase the reliability and efficiency of our network and cut the cost of
repairs.”
Scottish and Southern Electricity Networks (SSEN) will also
install 15 individual units on its southern network, which serves 3.1 million
customers across areas including Berkshire, Hampshire, Oxfordshire, Wiltshire
and West London.
George Simopoulos, SSEN’s Innovation Project Manager said:
“SSEN embraces the use of cutting-edge technology on our network that can
improve both the service and power supply we provide to our customers, and the
efficient and safe working practices of our engineers.
“The ability to monitor our network - and therefore pre-empt
potential power cuts – greatly reduces the risk of unplanned outages, enables
us to act quickly when issues are highlighted through the DFA system and
reassures our customers that we are proactively using innovative systems to
provide them with a more resilient power supply.
“Taking part in this programme and sharing knowledge with
our partners in this year-long trial is a great example of collaborative
working to benefit many millions of homes and businesses in southern England.”
Nathan Dyke, Innovation engineer at the EIC, said:
“This
project is a fantastic example of our electricity network partners
collaborating with innovators from the UK and across the globe, to explore solutions
that could improve customers’ lives and build an even more resilient energy
network.
“I’m really excited to see the benefits that this technology
could have for customers, especially for those most vulnerable, in preventing
power outages to their homes. Now more than ever, it is crucial that supply
remains uninterrupted and that we all stay connected.”
The trial runs until February 2022 when the team aim to
validate the approach that faults can be pre-empted by monitoring high voltage
feeders in real time at very high sample rates.
Explore our current opportunities to get involved in innovation projects with our industry partners here.