Green Energy
response – where major power users curtail their electricity use – helps protect the grid at times of stress. NESO’s Demand Flexibility Service has opened participation up to homes and businesses connected through registered providers.
Smarter, faster, better
Another approach is to get more from existing links, for example through the dynamic line rating equipment being adopted on the grid. This actively monitors transmission lines’ performance and condition, allowing them to be used above the static – and conservative – power values specified when they were first installed. But we can use technology to move far beyond what’s currently possible, building a smart grid where energy intelligence lets us optimise the performance of every component. At present, for example, the vast majority of demand flexibility depends on energy users taking action when requested; cooking dinner outside of peak hours, or turning down an industrial process. Automating this would allow grid operators faster and more reliable control and bring more ‘dispatchable’ power online. It could also allow for regional turn-downs, protecting specific transmission links when they’re approaching capacity.
Again, there are already early examples of how this will work. Several energy companies now offer intelligent electric vehicle (EV) charging where the load is shifted to times when energy is most abundant – even if this is during the day. The next step here is vehicle to grid (V2G), where the large batteries in EVs can be called on collectively to supply power, stabilising the grid or offsetting demand when there’s not enough renewable generation to meet it. This is in its infancy in the UK, through schemes like Octopus’ V2G Power Pack Bundle.
Microgrids, private networks and beyond
One significant innovation combines the ideas of co-location and smart grids on a community or regional level. Microgrids distribute local power generation to local users – such as a housing development – reducing infrastructure and energy costs. Private networks are similar, but bigger, and might supply a wider range of users. In both cases, electricity is traded ‘behind the meter’, saving network costs and giving buyers and sellers a better price.
Microgrids and private networks are optimised with a form of active network management (ANM), which helps balance electricity generation, demand and storage to prevent supply issues. ANM is in fact already used extensively across the grid, but in a fairly granular way, ‘tripping out’ generation circuits if they threaten to destabilise the system.
The future depends on pulling together all of these innovations – and more – to increase the capacity and stability of the grid as it evolves to cope with less predictable demands. Reaching net zero nirvana means having the right generation, in the right areas of high demand, linked with an upgraded smart grid that automatically turns down demand when necessary, and turns it up when there’s excess renewable energy available.
However, getting there means unpicking a legacy system designed 40-50 years ago, for a usage pattern that had barely changed until the last few years. It means adding new, smarter connections and integrating supply and demand intelligence in a seamless national electricity network. It’s a huge job, requiring rapid, far- reaching and brave change.
Experience shows that we can’t rely on the incumbents to provide this; it’s down to independents to think differently and to drive innovation. One example is the recent Energy Programme event, organised jointly by Eclipse, and the Environmental Change Institute (ECI) and Oriel College, of the University of Oxford. This brought industry experts together to map the electricity system and explore the effects of different changes to the network, and how they might help or hinder the delivery of net zero. Using exercises like this, and technology- driven approaches such as digital twins – where we create digital models of physical systems for experimentation and testing – will help us imagine the grid of the future and ‘wargame’ the various routine and exceptional scenarios it needs to deal with. But building the necessary infrastructure needs further regulation reform to encourage innovation, and support a move away from today’s monopolistic control of the transmission network.
ewnews.co.uk
December 2025 electrical wholesaler | 19
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