This report provides an overview of my experience during the third quarter of the ES Cornwall Memorial Scholarship. In November 2023, I began my placement at National Grid Electricity Transmission (NGET) in Warwick, United Kingdom in the Future Network Blueprints team. In my first and second quarter, I was tasked with developing the Regional Strategies for the business with an increasing focus placed on price control requirements as the project matured. While I still retained my key responsibilities in the Future Network Blueprints team, my role transitioned into a Power System Engineer in the Network Development division during the third quarter of my placement at NGET.
During my third quarter at National Grid Electricity Transmission, I shifted into the Strategic Network Planning (SNP) team in the Network Development division as Power System Engineer. The SNP team is responsible for determining the maximum power transfer across planning boundaries and developing network solutions for boundary constraints. The effectiveness of any network changes is determined by comparing the boundary uplift as a result of the upgrade against the baseline study. In the England and Wales network, thermal and voltage stability is accepted as the limiting factor for the network. Rotor angle stability is not a strong consideration as pole slipping is not considered to be a feasible network condition due to the heavily meshed system.
I however, was not yet finished with the price control related work. Distribution Network Operators (DNOs) manage and operate the regional infrastructure that distributes power supplied by NGET. During this quarter, I was part of a team that arranged and held meetings with each of the six DNOs to discuss, review and coordinate investments and strategic requirements between industry parties. These meetings revealed the need for additional communication channels between companies to facilitate the sharing of business plans that are early in development to better enable better the coordination between network operators. The UK power system introduced Demand Flexibility Services (DFS) in 2022, which is a mechanism aimed to incentivise domestic consumers and industrial and commercial users to voluntarily reduce or flex their demand. Although successful initially, DFS faced a number of challenges that limited participation. Four key areas focus areas were identified during the DNO engagement meetings. The implementation of DFS in the UK was limited by fundamental market characteristics, revenue risks, administrative and procedural barriers to entry.
A full version of this report can be found here.