Network Resilient Zone Utilising Standby Generation - Feasibility Study

Completed

Other Power and Storage Technologies(Electricity transmission and distribution)

Applied Research and Development

ENGINEERING AND TECHNOLOGY (Electrical and Electronic Engineering)

Not Cross-cutting

Project Contact
Scottish and Southern Energy plc

Network Innovation Allowance

Ofgem

01 July 2015

01 February 2016

7 months

£26,000

Power

Scotland

Network Innovation Allowance

Project Contact, Scottish and Southern Energy plc

The aim of this project is to determine the viability of options to improve the resilience of supply to a remote village community. The delivery of a study which determines the viability of options to improve network resilience to a remote village community by the provision of standby generation.

Within the SHEPD license area, there are a large number of rural communities. These are normally fed by radial 11 kV overhead lines with no alternative source of supply. This makes these communities more susceptible to weather related fault occurrences. Many of these rural communities have difficult access arrangements such as the ones located on islands where the only access is by boat which can often exacerbate the delay in reconnection due to their remoteness. The proposal is to explore alternative ways of improving the resilience of supply to remote communities by undertaking a feasibility study on the viability for the village community at Arinagour on the island of Coll to have a backup source of supply in the form of a standby generator. Technical and commercial options will be considered such as whether the generator is permanently connected or be brought to site when required or connected over the winter period. It is also proposed to consider the reconfiguration of the village low voltage network to improve resilience as the incoming supply to the village is an 11kV overhead line but the village LV network is underground which is less likely to be affected by adverse weather. The project will also consider how the local system will be operated under fault conditions. This study will be applicable to other areas of the network as the level of service to remote communities is one indicator of the quality of service provided by a UK DNO. A specific output will be the knowledge to enable a future project to prepare a tool to assess the viability of this methodology to other communities on the network.Note : Project Documents may be available via the ENA Smarter Networks Portal using the Website link above

14/09/18