Powerful potential: the UK smart grid takes shape

Transforming the UK’s electricity network into a self-monitoring, internet-enabled smart grid has the potential to reduce energy usage and enable widespread use of small-scale and intermittent renewable generation. And much of the technology to do this is already available. The issue for the country’s regional distribution network operators (DNOs) is working out how best to deploy that technology to meet the specific needs of its customers.

That’s why the government has made available £500m through regulator Ofgem for DNOs to test out different smart-grid technologies and techniques, from ways to connect large numbers of solar panels on customers’ roofs to methods of reducing consumer electricity demand. Western Power Distribution (WPD), which operates the grid in the Midlands, south Wales and south-west England, has been one of the most successful companies when it comes to winning Ofgem funding for its projects and is preparing a wide range of schemes that will help simulate what the UK’s smart grid could eventually look like.