The energy and utilities sector welcomes the launch of a government initiative that is aiming to engage and attract younger audiences to careers in engineering. As part of its Year of Engineering, central government has pledged to “work with hundreds of industry partners throughout 2018 to encourage young people and their parents to take a closer look at engineering.”
Addressing the skills shortage Read More »
The electricity and gas networks will play a key role in helping to deliver climate change. But what are some of the challenges they’re facing and how can the networks meet these ambitious targets? Editor Alec Peachey spoke to a number of the network operators to find out about the work they’re doing in this area. Below are some of the questions asked, and the answers we heard.
Achieving the right climate Read More »
Corporate demand and recent policy changes are fuelling a revolution in clean technology. Despite initial obstacles, the Paris Agreement has forced organisations to take a fresh look at their energy management practices. Yet, beyond the stated aim of the Paris climate accord to limit greenhouse gas emissions in order to reduce the impact of climate change, businesses are discovering additional benefits by adopting technologies that promote energy efficiency and sustainability.
Active energy management Read More »
Since first publishing the “Options, Choices, Actions” report in 2015 we have witnessed the emergence of many changes that will impact how the UK meets its 2050 climate targets. The government has set out its clean growth aspirations, while also developing a number of sector deals to add detail on how it intends to deliver this. More recently, the IPCC has provided a significant body of evidence that illustrates the true scale of our climate challenges, indicating that a target of ‘net zero’ emissions is now viewed by them as critical.
Achieving climate targets Read More »
Substation monitoring has been an area of interest amongst distribution network operators (DNOs) for some time, as the way consumers use and interact with the network changes due to the relatively rapid growth of photovoltaic installations, electric vehicles, domestic-level battery storage and so on. Before these relatively new technologies were widely adopted, it was sufficient to manually record a reading from an analogue maximum demand indicator during a physical inspection once or twice a year, but this is no longer considered sufficient by many in the industry who are now interested in annual and diurnal patterns, harmonics and more.
Accelerating innovation Read More »
Both the UK and Scottish Governments have highlighted the important role that heat networks will play in the transition to a low-carbon energy system, with the Clean Growth Strategy stating that they could provide between 17-24 per cent of the UK’s heat demand.
A pivotal year for the heat network sector Read More »
The energy landscape today is undergoing significant transformation as distribution network operators (DNOs) continue making the transition towards distribution system operators (DSOs). Led by widespread growth of distributed generation – including 27.0GW of installed rooftop solar capacity globally in 2017(1) – along with battery storage, electric vehicles (EVs), and other forms of distributed energy resources (DERs), DSOs face significant changes to the traditional energy delivery model. Coupled with an evolving regulatory framework, in order to continue to provide safe, reliable, and affordable grid services, DSOs are looking at new, modern approaches to safely connect, model, manage and optimise customer DERs within the overall network.
A platform-based approach to distribution operations Read More »
Whether you agree with its conclusions or not, the Cost of Energy Review lays out a clear, and at times sobering, review of the development of the electricity sector over the last 50 years and its present complicated structure. For those of us who have been arguing that we need radical change it certainly offers that. It covers all aspects of electricity supply but I’m going to look at the proposals for networks which are probably more far reaching than for other areas, even if they have received less attention.
Customers living on heat networks across the UK will now be able to compare their annual heating and hot water costs with alternative heating systems using Heat Trust’s Heat Cost Calculator.
A leap forward in heat trust Read More »
