Feasibility of Risk based Network Planning

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
National Grid Electricity Transmission

Network Innovation Allowance

Ofgem

01 April 2015

01 April 2019

48 months

£200,000

Power

London

Network Innovation Allowance

Project Contact, National Grid Electricity Transmission

The key objectives of this research is to: Establish the viability of developing and adopting a more risk based approach to network planning based around system and asset management factors. Scope out the level of data, analysis and resources necessary to provide this level of information and study capacity. Understand the likelihood that this method could be reliably and robustly incorporated into future Network Owner business planning models. The development of a visualisation module incorporated into/ interfacing with PowerFactory to demonstrate the feasibility of this concept.

The current industry network planning tools employ deterministic criteria but do not indicate the risks associated with design decisions and the areas to focus investment or resource. Asset management is fundamentally about managing risk and providing information for the Network Owners to make decisions which affect investment and network security. As higher demands are being made on the Network infrastructure this becomes increasingly important. Bringing together the network design process, with network output measures (NOMs) and network monitoring will potentially help to address this. The approach to this problem will involve researching the capability of National Grid’s network design tool (PowerFactory) to include factors associated with asset condition, strategic importance, weather, environment and complex network interactions, which could affect the performance of an asset or the network in which it features. These asset management decision making tools will then be either incorporated into or interfaced with PowerFactory to provide visibility of the levels of risk associated with planning and operational scenarios and decisions.Note : Project Documents may be available via the ENA Smarter Networks Portal using the Website link above

14/08/18