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Western Power Distribution

Power Cuts in SW England from Stormin’ Noname

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Following in the footsteps of Storm Caroline a couple of days ago, another storm is now putting some people’s lights out here in South West England. This one doesn’t have an official name, but nonetheless here is the United Kingdom Met Office’s recent forecast:

Whilst areas further north have an “amber” warning for snow, here is the Met Office’s official “yellow” wind warning for Southern England this morning:

UKMO-2017-12-10_0400

A spell of strong winds is expected to spread eastwards across the far south of the UK. Gusts of 50 mph are likely quite widely, with 60 mph gusts in places and close to 70 mph at times in the most exposed coastal locations. The highest gusts and strongest winds are expected Bristol Channel coastal areas during Sunday morning. High winds will also be accompanied by heavy showers, with a chance of hail and thunder, in parts of south Wales and southwest England.

Those “strongest winds in Bristol Channel coastal areas” have certainly done some damage to Western Power Distribution’s electricity distribution grid this morning. It looks as though the snow and ice across the Midlands has had an effect too:

WPD-Map-2017-12-10_1028

WPD-Table-2017-12-10_1028

As has been our recent custom, here too is UK plc’s current electricity generation mix courtesy of Gridwatch:

GridWatch-Main-20171210-1030

and here is a graph of UK plc’s carbon intensity so far today:

CarbonIntensity_20171210-115134

 

[Edit – December 11th 10:00]

STOP PRESS! We had a brief power cut here at V2G Towers in Tremail this morning. It only lasted for a couple of minutes, and is presumably related to this problem just up the road in Davidstow:

WPD-Davidstow2017-12-11_1000

 

[Edit – December 11th 17:45]

Suppy has now been restored to the remaining 15 properties in the Davidstow area that have been without mains electricity for most of today.

WPD-Map-2017-12-11_1745

Whilst the number of properties without power across WPD’s network has been reducing today there are still a little under 4,000 remaining, largely in the West Midlands:

WPD-Table-2017-12-11_1745

Earlier today WPD issued a press release concerning the effects of Storm Caroline on their distribution network:

Over the weekend we restored just over 99,500 customers, 70,000 of those were in the West Midlands and 15,000 in South Wales which have been the two worst affected areas.

We do not anticipate any further disruption to be caused by the weather conditions based on the latest forecasts we have received.

Since first light this morning, additional resources from other areas have been drafted into the West Midlands to aid with outstanding restorations and repairs.

Over the course of Saturday and Sunday the Contact Centre handled over 20,000 calls with an average speed of response of 7 seconds. 94% of calls were answered in twenty seconds or under. Extra staff worked in both Centres with Ramp Up Rooms opened in our Bristol and Plymouth offices in addition to homeworkers being logged in as well. The transport team also assisted in getting staff into the Contact Centres who were struggling due to the adverse weather conditions.

The British Red Cross were activated twice but were also offered to multiple customers in addition to this who turned down the offer of the support. 969 proactive calls were also made to registered vulnerable customers offering support and advising them when their power supply would be restored.

Below is a snapshot of our performance and associated information covering Saturday 9th and Sunday 10th December.

WPD-Storm-Caroline

 

[Edit – December 11th 23:55]

An intriguing carbon intensity graph for the coldest night of the winter so far:

CarbonIntensity_20171211

Coal fired generation is working quite hard at the moment!

GridWatch-Main-20171211-2355

 

[Edit – December 12th 11:00]

UK plc’s carbon intensity reached a peak of over 480 gCO₂/kWh overnight:

CarbonIntensity_20171212-105540

Meanwhile WPD’s power cut map has finally reverted to something approaching normality:

WPD-Map-2017-12-12_0706

Honda Research V2G Technology in Europe

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Honda have just announced in a press release that:

Honda has invested in advanced bi-directional charging technology at its European R&D site in Offenbach, Germany, which is helping to balance demand and store energy more efficiently across the facility. The new charging system incorporates renewable energy generation, and is a test bed for hardware that will be available to private households in the future.

The technology installation in Germany follows the debut of the domestic Honda Power Manager Concept at the 2017 Frankfurt Motor Show in September. The concept previewed a fully-integrated energy transfer, which takes power from the grid and can return stored energy from electric vehicle (EV) batteries – through ‘Vehicle-to-Grid’ or ‘V2G’ technology. This latest trial installation at Honda’s Offenbach site applies the same principles on a larger scale.

Here’s how Honda’s new bi-directional V2G capable charging station looks, albeit not in situ in Offenbach by the looks of it!

Honda installs new bi-directional charging technology at European R&D centre

Honda installs new bi-directional charging technology at European R&D centre

According to Jörg Böttcher, Vice President of Honda R&D Europe:

With the installation of the latest bi-directional charging technology at our R&D site in Germany, we are adding the next technology to our Smart Company project, which will further enhance our research activity in the field of zero-emission society and future mobility.

Here at V2G UK we have come to associate the word “Honda” with “hydrogen“, although Honda did take part in a V2G trial in the United States back in 2013. Here in Europe in 2017 they point out that:

With the help of the bi-directional hardware and with the technology of The Mobility House, Honda aims to optimise energy management at its European R&D campus, maximising the use of renewable solar power in particular. The project is testing the interaction, compatibility and power flow between specific electrical components, including the renewable energy cells and the EV batteries. The installation represents a collaboration between Honda R&D Europe, energy service provider The Mobility House and Swiss technology company EVTEC.

The investment in the bi-directional energy transfer technology further enhances the world’s most advanced public charging station for plug-in vehicles, which was launched at Honda R&D Europe in summer 2017. Its state-of-the-art 940V capability can deliver up to 150kW of energy, enabling as many as four vehicles to charge simultaneously with different types of connectors. Since its installation in June, the EV charging station has supplied power for 447 charge sessions and has saved 3.87 tonnes of CO2.

Here’s a video from The Mobility House explaining their vision of a future “V2G enabled” world:

https://youtu.be/qGtCClE4tcY

There’s more information on that topic in a press release from EVTEC which doesn’t seem to be available online at the moment. In slightly stilted English the Swiss company explain that:

With the growing importance of electric mobility, the two worlds of energy and mobility are merging. The closer this connection becomes, the more importance gain intelligent technologies that ensure this development secures a sustainable future. Such a technology is Vehicle-to-Grid, in short “V2G”. What is behind this term, is the intelligent integration of electric vehicles in the energy system and markets.

This advantage is well known to Honda, where the V2G technology is already in use today: with the help of a bidirectional charging solution, the company aims to optimize energy management at its European R & D campus in Offenbach. Within the framework of a comprehensive project over the last 12 month, the interaction of various energy components – from vehicle battery to photovoltaic system – is being tested here.

According to EVTEC co-founder and CEO Markus Kramis:

A reliable, precise, and fast acting bi-directional charger is the necessary base for every V2G application, like peak shaving and energy optimization.

All in all that EVTEC charging station sounds like just the sort of thing we need to try out at V2G Towers over here in North Cornwall, located in a distant corner of sunny South West England amongst an impressive array of large scale solar PV and onshore wind “farms”!

The same may well apply to Honda’s Power Manager mentioned above, which was announced at the Frankfurt Motor Show in September. According to a Honda press release once again:

Its all-new Power Manager Concept, a fully-integrated energy transfer system, is designed to incorporate electric vehicles into a smart power grid. It enables the collection and distribution of electricity between the grid, homes and businesses and electric vehicles, to intelligently balance demand and efficient storage of energy. Honda will apply its Power Manager technology as part of a smart grid pilot scheme in the west of France.

Honda-Power-Manager

Power Manager Concept works by aggregating and distributing energy to and from the grid, solar panel-equipped homes or workplaces, and electric vehicles.

Electricity is received into the system from the grid or is generated by the solar panels and can be used to power and heat the building as well as to charge the EV. While the EV is plugged in, the energy can be stored and used at home or sold back to the grid, potentially generating value for EV owners.

The Power Manager Concept system can help to stabilise the grid at times of either short or surplus supply, as well as representing a revenue opportunity for EV owners.

That sounds like just the sort of thing that Western Power Distribution needs to help stabilise the electricity distribution grid in our neck of the woods, which is currently heavily “constrained”:

WPD-NoCapacity

Do you suppose that we could possibly persuade Honda to apply its Power Manager technology as part of a smart grid pilot scheme here in the south west of England too?

V2G in the BEIS Basement

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Last Thursday we took the train up to London because the next morning we were attending a meeting organised by the British Standards Institution on the topic of “The future of standards for a smart, flexible energy system“. Instead of one of the BSI’s own offices the venue for the event was the conference centre of the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, just around the corner from Westminster Abbey.

Apart from attending the event itself we were also one of five SMEs displaying our wares in an adjacent room. Here’s how our stand looked when we’d just about finished setting up:

RasPisGalore

That was when a BEIS engineer told us what we’d missed during our journey the previous day. The announcement of the UK Government’s new Clean Growth Strategy:

An ambitious blueprint for Britain’s low carbon future.

This strategy sets out our proposals for decarbonising all sectors of the UK economy through the 2020s. It explains how the whole country can benefit from low carbon opportunities, while meeting national and international commitments to tackle climate change.

No doubt we’ll have much more to say on all that in due course, but for the moment here’s an overview of V2G Limited’s clean growth strategy, as displayed in the BEIS basement last week. First of all let’s take a look at the problem UK plc has committed to tackle:

DSC_1252

That’s the output of a “medium complexity” climate model running on V2G’s trusty Raspberry Pi 3B and displayed on BEIS’ 55 inch screen. Note that the carbon dioxide concentration had been increased to 405 ppm from the default 280. Amongst other things that’s a graphical demonstration of just how much number crunching bang you get for 1.3 bucks in this day and age. Now our little computational engine doesn’t forecast the weather of course, but the United States’ National Hurricane Center’s much larger engine does. Here is its Friday 13th forecast for Hurricane Ophelia:

ophelia_5day_cone_20171013-15Z

I don’t think anybody’s accurately added up the costs attributable to Ophelia yet, but according to Wikipedia at the moment:

Damage has been estimated at 1 billion euros ($1.18 billion USD), making it one of the most expensive storms ever to strike the UK and Ireland.

Having outlined the problem, here’s a slightly modified version of V2G’s 5 year old artist’s impression of part of the solution that was also on display in the BEIS basement:

DSC_1251

How much might the financial damage caused by Ophelia’s passage have been reduced if every building in the UK and Ireland had access to some local energy generation plus some static and/or mobile energy storage? Whilst you ponder that question, here’s a close up of our RasPi 3B together with its cousin, a Raspberry Pi 2B with a cluster of 4 baby Raspberry Pi Zeros on its back:

2017-10-13-RasPis

The RasPi 2 was running our new open source UK plc carbon intensity plotter. Here’s what that revealed on Friday the 13th of October 2017:

CarbonIntensity-20171013

As you can no doubt readily appreciate the graph is not a horizontal line! The value at any time is dependent on demand of course, but also on the amount of renewable generation in the mix. That is highly dependent on the weather, and indeed the weather forecast should you be attempting to control UK plc’s carbon emissions. If you’re “committed to tackling climate change” you really should be committed to minimising the integral of the blue line representing UK plc’s actual carbon intensity. Unfortunately that’s not how the UK’s energy markets currently operate. Perhaps they need a redesign?

The Raspberry Pi Zeros only have a single core rather than the 4 cores on the climate modelling 3B. Nonetheless at a cost of four Great British Pounds a pop (plus tax) they are more than capable of acting as a highly “intelligent” device connected to a Great British “smart grid”. Ours already run a variety of British “standards for a smart, flexible energy system”. If you doubt that please feel free to read all about the time V2G’s offices suffered their very own “blackout”. As I pointed out way back then:

Such a piece of electronics wouldn’t in and of itself add a whole lot to the price of an electric vehicle and/or a garage in Dunchideock, or anywhere else on the planet for that matter.

I cannot help but wonder how much the Great Dunchideock Blackout cost Western Power Distribution, how much the evidently changing climate in this part of the world is costing and will cost them, and how their electricity distribution network is coping with the assorted stresses and strains generated by all the renewable power sources currently being tacked onto it down here in not so Sunny South West England that do not currently have any form of energy storage associated with them.

Moving on to the near end of our table at BEIS, here’s a LEGO tableau representing our artist’s impression of a passenger free connected vehicle driven by a “robot” deciding which of three possible electric vehicle charging stations it should connect to:

2017-10-13-Connected-2

In this instance its battery is nearly flat, it’s in a hurry to pick up another human and the grid is in good shape so it’s therefore decided to select the ultra rapid “robotic” charging station. This may seem like child’s play, but it isn’t. On Friday Julian Anderson of Thales e-Security stopped by our stand. We had a bit of a play with the Lego and a longer discussion about the cyber security implications of connected vehicles and autonomous EV charging.

Here’s another point to ponder. Apart from BEIS and Thales we also had a long conversation with an engineer from Ofgem about “community energy markets“. However the people who make policy were conspicuous only by their absence from our audience.

N.B. There’s already another big storm on the way to us here in South West England, as well as Ireland once again. This one’s called Brian, and according to the Met Office:

Between 04:00 Sat 21st and 23:59 Sat 21st

A spell of strong southwesterly winds is expected. Some coastal routes and communities are likely to be affected by large waves, with potential for flooding of properties. Some transport disruption is likely across the warning area, with delays to road, rail, air and ferry transport. Short term loss of power and other services is also possible.

Brian-20171019+2d

Hurricane Ophelia Power Cuts

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Hurricane Ophelia is heading in our direction. Reaching category 3 strength earlier today she is the strongest hurricane on record this far east in the North Atlantic. Moving further north over cooler waters her maximum wind speeds have now reduced to category 2. By the time she gets here she will have morphed into an extratropical cyclone, but she’ll still be packing hurricane force winds. Here is the current forecast from the United States’ National Hurricane Center:

ophelia_5day_cone_20171015-15Z

ophelia_wind-prob_20171015-15Z

Met Éireann have issued a red wind warning across the south of Ireland:

Wind Warning for Wexford, Galway, Mayo, Clare, Cork, Kerry, Limerick and Waterford

Hurricane Ophelia is expected to transition to a post tropical storm as it approaches our shores on Monday bringing severe winds and stormy conditions . Mean wind speeds in excess of 80 km/h and gusts in excess of 130km/h are expected, potentially causing structural damage and disruption, with dangerous marine conditions due to high seas and potential flooding.

Here’s the Met Office’s warning of an amber alert for Northern Ireland tomorrow, together with a yellow wind warning for us here in Cornwall:

ophelia-UKMO-warning_20171015+1d

Finally, for the moment at least, here is the current Magic Seaweed surf forecast for North Cornwall tomorrow:

WidemouthSurf-20171015+1d

 

[Edit – October 16th 08:00]

Here’s our weather forecast for today in North Cornwall:

BBC-Camelford-2017-10-16_0800

It definitely sounds blustery outside! Western Power Distribution’s power cut map doesn’t display anything too unusual yet:

WPD-Map-2017-10-16_0721

However a few power cuts have started appearing on ESB Networks’ map of Southern Ireland:

ESB-Map-2017-10-16_0824

 

[Edit – October 16th 11:00]

Over 35,000 properties are now without power across southern Ireland:

ESB-Map-20171016-1058

The lights are starting to go out here in South West England too:

WPD-Map-20171016-1053

The waves are getting bigger too:

Widdy-20171016-1107

 

[Edit – October 16th 16:00]

The ESB Networks power cut map seems to have given up under the strain. At 14:00 it showed over 180,000 properties without power. Meanwhile the storm has been bringing down power lines in Northern Ireland:

NIE-Map-2017-10-16_1613

and Wales:

WPD-Map-2017-10-16_1613

There are now a total of ~3500 properties without power across Western Power Distribution’s four areas of the country. Here’s how our local surf spot looks at the moment:

Widdy-20171016-1504

 

[Edit – October 17th 11:00]

Here’s a selection of reports about Ophelia from the media, together with this morning’s set of power cut maps:

ESB-Map-20171017-1012

NIE-Map-20171017-1012

Engineers from Electricity North West are working in difficult conditions today to restore power after ex-hurricane Ophelia hit the North West overnight.

The region’s power network operator has restored supplies to more than 16,000 properties throughout the night following the Met Office’s yellow weather warning for severe gales of 60 to 65mph.

Around 2,000 properties remain without power as flying debris has hit power lines and high winds make access difficult for repair teams. Properties are affected mainly in the Lake District with 1,700 without power and 150 properties in Lancashire are currently without power.

ENW-Map-20171017-1025

As a result of the high winds brought by the remnants of Storm Ophelia, whilst a number of customers have had their electricity supplies affected, the level of power cuts is considered busy but not exceptionally so.

The biggest impact has been in West Wales and Cornwall where a number of weather related incidents have occurred.

Currently around 3,000 customers are off supply. All incidents are currently being worked on by our engineers, with supplies on track to be restored this evening.

Since around 9am this morning we have restored around 12,000 customers in the South West and South Wales.

WPD-Map-20171017-1025

According to ESB Networks:

We are advising all customers impacted by outages that they should prepare to be without electricity for number of days. It is very important that any customers who use electrically powered medical devices should contact their healthcare professional to make alternative arrangements if necessary.

According to the Irish Times:

The country is facing days of “catch-up” as schools, hospitals, roads, electricity networks and other key public infrastructure are cleared of debris or repaired following Storm Ophelia.

Three people were killed on Monday in the worst storm to hit Ireland in more than 50 years, which left hundreds of thousands without electricity overnight.

The storm caused the most devastation in the south and west but left every county with some level of disruption.

Ministers and senior officials have warned that it will take days for some public services to get back to full strength. All schools will remain closed on Tuesday to allow for safety inspections to take place, with most expected to reopen on Wednesday.

 

[Edit – October 18th]

ESB Networks report that:

The following map shows the remaining faults caused by ex-hurricane Ophelia to be repaired. We have restored over 70% of homes and businesses and here are currently 105,000 homes and businesses still without power that are represented on the following map by the black circles. The bigger the circles the more faults there are that need to be repaired in that area.

ophelia-heat-map-20171018

Electricity North West have now repaired almost all the faults caused by Ophelia:

Engineers from Electricity North West have worked tirelessly to repair damage caused by ex-hurricane Ophelia and subsequent bad weather and restore power to the majority of customers in the region.

Despite working round the clock to restore power to those affected by ex-hurricane Ophelia on Monday and early Tuesday, further bad weather last night from 6.30pm caused power cuts to another 5,000 properties along the county’s west coast.

Engineers worked through the night and restored power to all but 18 customers and they will continue to work today to restore those final few customers located in Egremont, Cumbria.

Electricity North West has turned their attention to assisting the restoration efforts in the Republic of Ireland. A team of more than 30, including engineers and overhead lines people, will help repair damage and restore power to thousands still without power in the Republic of Ireland.

 

[Edit – October 19th]

ESB Networks have produced another power cut heat map. This evening they say that:

ESB Networks have now restored power to 322,000 homes, farms and businesses affected by ex-hurricane Ophelia. The following map illustrates the ​63,000 homes and businesses that we are currently working to restore.

ophelia-heat-map-20171019

 

[Edit – October 20th]

Here’s the latest power cut heat map from ESB Networks:

42,000 homes, farms and businesses remain without power this morning. These are highlighted in the following heat map.

ophelia-heat-map-20171020

The rate of progress numbers wise from here will slow down as each individual fault must be repaired pole by pole. Also with the weather forecast to worsen the conditions that the crews are working in makes the restoration effort more difficult and slower.

In a later news release they report that:

ESB Networks have now continued to restore power this morning, with power now restored to 343,000 families, farms and businesses. Approximately 42,000 customers remain without supply.

​The worst impacted areas are in the environs of Enniscorthy, Wexford town, New Ross, Bandon, Dunmanway and Fermoy.

Assisted by contractors, crews from Northern Ireland and overseas utilities, as well as the army and air corps, ESB Networks will continue restorations to every last family, farm and business until their lives are back to normal.

A Met Éireann Status Orange wind warning has been issued for seven coastal counties, including Cork and Wexford, will hamper restoration efforts. Should the weather conditions worsen further, our crews will be stood down until it is safe to resume repairs again. Winds speeds up to 130 km/h will cause outages to customers in Mayo, Galway, Clare, Kerry, Cork, Waterford and Wexford on Saturday.

Evangelising V2G in South West England

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I’ve been out on the road this week, explaining the potential benefits of vehicle-to-grid technology to a variety of audiences. First up on Wednesday evening was the “Autumn Connect” event at Exeter City Futures, where I made a presentation entitled “V2G – How to simultaneously store energy and reduce congestion.”. I had the luxury of being allowed 5 minutes to present an “elevator pitch” on that subject to the assembled throng:

Image Autumn Connect 2017 (for web)_013 (1)

Here’s an expanded version of the PowerPoint slide deck I used. They all had Kasia’s “artist’s impression” of V2G in action at the top, so I’ll omit that part here. The first two slides are taken from a 2 minute pitch I presented at the Met Office on Thursday (see below) and have to conform to a template provided by the Knowledge Transfer Network. Hence:

V2G Limited

  • A small “smart grid” consultancy located amongst the wind and solar “farms” of North Cornwall
  • The “smart grid” is actually the “internet of big things”!
  • Producing embedded firmware for 35 years
  • Under a previous name provided multi-drop fleet routing interfaced to SAP for a FTSE 250 company
  • Long experience in electricity distribution. The Lucy Switchgear Gemini RTU firmware is our baby
  • Whilst we understand hardware our expertise is in designing software/firmware
  • Evangelising Vehicle-to-Grid technology for 5 years

I trust that is all self explanatory?! If not please see below or ask questions in the space made available for that purpose in the comments section at the bottom.

I always like to encourage some audience participation at these events, and Exeter City Futures delivered in spades! For the first time ever I didn’t need to blow my own bidirectional trumpet:

BiDirectionalTrumpet-Horiz

Timekeeper Lyndsey volunteered to blow the V2G trumpet for me, though ultimately it informed me that my time was up before I even managed to display the last slide, so make sure to read all about that below!

To make my “internet of big things” point I waved my trusty Raspberry Pi 3B at the audience. Here is what it looks like close up:

RasPi3B-Horiz

Dr. Sarah Ward from the University of Exeter correctly, if somewhat hesitantly, identified the mystery object. Now I’ve been programming the firmware (i.e. the software inside the hardware) in those sorts of devices for a very long time. 35 years ago single board computers were a lot slower and a lot bigger, but they still did the same sort of job. In those days they didn’t have USB ports like the Pi. Instead they had serial ports that conformed to the RS-232 standard. Getting two devices to talk to each other was always “interesting”!

I asked the audience to raise their hands if they’d previously heard of the “smart grid”. Quite a lot had:

Image Autumn Connect 2017 (for web)_012 (1)

Then I asked who had heard of the “internet of things”. Slightly more hands were raised. The point being that hardware a lot like the Raspberry Pi is at the heart of your smartphone, at the heart of the Smart Grid and (albeit in a smaller form factor) at the heart of the Internet of Things. The main difference being that the smart grid has been around quite a lot longer than the IoT! A point that some of my audience at the Met Office on Thursday seemed to agree with since they nodded their heads vigorously at that juncture!

Moving on to slide 2:

WP-banner-V2G

1. Our project idea

  • See the infographic above
  • North Cornwall is ideal!
  • Charge EVs on sunny lunchtimes
 2. What’s innovative about it?

  • Nobody’s done it yet
  • On all sorts of levels!
  • Price signals / regulation?
3. The services we can offer?

  • Vast systems integration experience
  • Vast enthusiasm
  • AI for Energy Systems
 4. The partners/services we seek?

  • Kite marked V2G hardware
  • An all electric car club
  • A suitable site

I asked the audience if it was obvious what the infographic represented. I was subsequently informed that a hand had gone up in the far corner of the room, but I didn’t notice at the time. To explain, imagine a conventional home with solar PV panels on the roof exporting excess electricity to the local distribution grid. Now add some static batteries in the utility room or the garage. Store any excess “free” energy generated when the sun is shining in that battery. When the household electric vehicle returns from the daily commute charge it up from the battery rather than from the mains, since by now the sun will be low in the sky or already below the horizon in winter.

If you have that basic hardware setup available then there’s lots of other things you can do with it! How about buying electricity from the grid when it’s cheap and storing it in your static and/or mobile batteries. Then just for starters you could sell it back to the grid when electricity’s more expensive? There are other possibilities too, which brings me on to slide 3:

WPD-NoCapacity

That’s a portion of Western Power Distribution‘s network constraint map. Note that most of Devon & Cornwall is plastered in red due to all the intermittent renewable electricity generation we have down here. One day (hopefully!) soon you’ll be able to earn money by allowing WPD to charge and discharge your batteries when it suits them, in order to help them cope with the stresses that intermittent generation can subject their electricity distribution grid to. The current fly in that particular pot of ointment are the rules and regulations currently enforced by Ofgem, which make it nigh on impossible for neighbouring energy “prosumers” to trade electricity with each other. Highlighting bullet point 2(c) I idly enquired if anybody else in the room “has had problems with Ofgem’s red tape?”. Not a single hand was raised in protest.

As regular readers will be aware, the town of Camelford in North Cornwall is an Air Quality Management Area (AQMA for short). Much like the centre of Exeter, the air quality in the centre of Camelford is fairly foul due to the noxious emissions of all the diesel engines that travel slowly through it. Electric vehicles can help with that, since they have no exhaust pipes and by and large use regenerative braking rather than rubbing dust off brake pads when they want to slow down. Hence slide 4 consisted of pictures of V2G capable examples of such vehicles, plus an image of the xStorage static battery storage device being produced from ex Nissan LEAF batteries by Eaton. An electric car club in Camelford and/or Exeter would be a small step along the road to reducing congestion and air pollution in both town and city centres, whilst V2G enabled vehicles in the fleet would also provide a mobile energy storage facility!

That’s about as far as I got on Wednesday before Lyndsey blew the metaphorical whistle on me, so I hastily concluded by mentioning this apposite comment from blog reader Chris:

Chris-CarClub

It seems that struck a chord with at least one member of the audience. In the first image above you can see the back of Mark Hodgson’s head, if you know where to look. Mark’s Co-Cars car club certainly isn’t 100% electric, but it has just installed a couple of EV charging points in the Exeter area. That would seem to fit the bill for my bullet point 4(b) quite nicely?

Here’s the final slide I never had a chance to mention on Wednesday evening:

Of course solar PV isn’t the only form of RE generation, and batteries aren’t the only way of storing energy, at home or in the office. There’s also heat, and cold, and eddi & zappi: http://myenergi.uk/products/

MyEnergi

What do you suppose that’s all about? To help answer that question let’s move on to Thursday and my trip to the Met Office. At least the previous evening’s rain had stopped:

2017-09-21_16-12-28_189

I was presenting at a briefing event for Innovate UK’s Emerging and Enabling Technologies competition. I got the feeling that since this was (one of?) the first KTN briefing(s) held in Exeter most delegates weren’t making the most of the KTN’s “Meeting Mojo” facility. Anybody who ventured in there would have discovered that I was hoping to meet:

Partners who appreciate that the “Smart grid” is a subset of “The internet of things”, and predates the IoT!

whilst offering a potential consortium:

Smart Grid Consultancy: 5 years vehicle-to-grid, 15 years electricity distribution, 35 years system integration. Now with added blockchain!

Shortly before the event proper got underway I explained to the KTN’s Simon Yarwood, MC for the pitch session, that although I only had 2 slides in my deck I was actually representing 2 companies from a nascent V2G consortium. He graciously allowed me to overrun my allotted 2 minutes, and here’s what I added to the top two slides above:

EBRI-Live-2017-09-23-0924

That’s a still from a web page that provides real time updates on the state of the building management system at the European Bioenergy Research Institute at Aston University:

https://youtu.be/89RDjp1E3W4

As you can see at the top of that page, a bidirectional charging station with associated static storage connected to a Nissan LEAF pool car is employed at EBRI as both an energy source and sink, in what is the UK’s first V2x pilot project. Strictly speaking it’s vehicle to building (V2B) rather than fully fledged V2G, but as far as the charging station itself is concerned that is of no consequence.

The BMS software at EBRI is now being further developed by Grid Edge Ltd. who assure me that it utilises various machine learning methods using a variety of inputs including weather forecasts, energy usage history, WiFi connections and football match schedules to optimise the overall energy use profile of the building and the assets within. As well as a modest amount of battery storage the EBRI building also includes energy storage in the form of large tanks of both hot and cold water in the basement, as indicated on the real time infographic shown above. That’s where the MyEnergi system depicted in slide 5 above comes in. It doesn’t use complex prediction or optimisation software, but it does attempt to sensibly direct the electricity generated by domestic solar PV panels to charge your EV, heat up your hot water, or if all else fails export some to the grid.

Q.E.D?

Energy Storage Growth Scenarios and Operating Modes

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Western Power Distribution and Regen SW have just released a report on the results of their consultation concerning “Energy Storage Growth Scenarios and Operating Modes“. The entire report is worth a read from cover to cover, but here are a couple of extracts that immediately caught our eye here at V2G UK:

On 13th July 2017, National Grid published the latest version of their Future Energy Scenarios (FES) strategic document. This document considers and discusses the role of energy storage in the future in 4 key energy scenarios. In these scenarios, storage is referenced as a provider of flexibility, both for response and co-location with intermittent generation (both solar and wind) and highlights the expectation that energy storage will be a significant part of the ongoing energy transition towards a smarter and more distributed electricity system. National Grid forecast strong growth in energy storage (in all scenarios) over the next few years, such that a total of 6 GW is forecast to be connected to the UK electricity system by 2020. Beyond this,National Grid expectation for energy storage growth varies significantly across the scenarios proposed, with the highest two scenarios showing storage grow to 10 GW by 2050 (Consumer Power-10.7 GW and Two Degrees – 9.8 GW). The considerably lower level of storage growth (under the Steady Statescenario) shows 5.2 GW by 2050, due to low levels of available funding, coupled with a reduction in capacity from 2030 onwards, as a result of existing assets not being replaced when they reach end of life.

There is also this V2G specific section:

A number of market analyst’s reports have projected energy storage growth scenarios, these include National Grid Future Energy Scenarios (see Fig.4), Committee on Climate Change, Carbon Trust and UK Government.As a starting point for WPD’s modelling, we are proposing to take a:

•High growth scenario of 10-12 GW and 24-44 GWh of energy storage capacity installed across GB by 2030.
•Lower growth scenario of 4-5 GW and 6-15 GWh across GB by 2030.

Note: these figures include 2.7GW of existing pumped hydro storage.

The introduction of significant number of electric vehicles under “Vehicle-to-Grid” (V2G) arrangements could be one factor that results in storage deployments levels increasing above the values we proposed. However, other comments received also identified regulatory barriers as a key factor that could perhaps limit deployment to levels potentially even beneath the lower growth scenario proposed. The wide margin between the high and low growth scenarios presented was recognised as an accurate reflection of market uncertainty.

We couldn’t agree more. There is currently much “market uncertainty” concerning energy storage in general and V2G technology in particular. Removing the “regulatory barriers” to progress would be most welcome down here in North Cornwall!

Storm Doris Blacks Out Britain

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Here is the United Kingdom Met Office’s severe weather warning map for today:

According to the Met Office forecast for the West Midlands:

Some very strong winds are expected on Thursday in association with storm Doris with gusts of 60-70 mph likely, and 70-80 mph on coasts and hills.

There is still some uncertainty about the track of storm Doris, but increasing confidence that there will be widespread disruption across parts of England and Wales.

Earlier this morning we took a snapshot of Western Power Distribution’s live power cut map. It looked like this:

It’s now 10 AM on Thursday February 23rd, and WPD’s map now looks like this:

 

[Edit – Feb 23rd 12:15]

It’s now 12:15 PM on Thursday February 23rd. Over 20,000 properties are now without electric power in Western Power Distribution’s West Midlands region alone:

Electricity Northwest are tweeting helpful information to their online customers:

So are UK Power Networks:

However if you’ve just had a power cut you’d need to have a UPS for your PC in order to read those helpful messages! Or a fully charged mobile device with nearby comms towers still powered up!

 

[Edit – Feb 23rd 13:15]

It’s now 13:15 on Thursday February 23rd. Over 30,000 properties are now without electric power across Western Power Distribution’s East and West Midlands regions:

Scottish & Southern Energy Networks have issued a news release:

SSEN engineers are making good progress in reconnecting customers affected by damage to overhead lines and network equipment. Since midnight, SSEN engineers have successfully restored power to over 22,000 homes, with approximately 5,000 homes currently without power. All faults are fully resourced and all customers are expected to be restored tonight.

The worst of the conditions have been observed in Oxfordshire, Berkshire and Hampshire where a wind gust of 65mph was recorded in Odiham.

SSEN has more than 1,000 engineering, technical and support staff on duty. Ahead of the storm, engineering teams were mobilised to key locations to minimise disruption and inconvenience to customers.

Customer service teams have been contacting over 7,000 customers on our Priority Service Register to check on their wellbeing in case they need additional help.

 

[Edit – Feb 23rd 14:45]

It’s now 14:45 on Thursday February 23rd. Over 45,000 properties are now without electric power across Western Power Distribution’s East and West Midlands regions:

 

[Edit – Feb 23rd 16:00]

It’s now 16:00 on Thursday February 23rd. WPD’s live power cut map is down for maintenance:

It’s obviously fairly breezy across the United Kingdom today! Let’s take a look at the current UK electricity generation mix at the moment, courtesy of GridWatch:

Western Power Distribution have issued a severe weather update:

We are currently exceptionally busy within WPD with the East and West Midlands area being especially affected in particular by the effects of Storm Doris so far.

Issued on: Thursday 23rd February – 3pm

The West Midlands has been significantly affected with almost 22,000 customers currently off supply with the vast majority being affected between 09:00 and 12:00 with Hereford, Ludlow, Worcester, Telford and Stoke suffering the worst effects.

During the last hour the fault rate in East Midlands has picked up where we have around 10,000 without power as the storm is now tracking eastwards as expected.

Our engineers are currently working hard to restore supplies as quickly and safely as possible, and we have additional staff in our Contact Centres, Control Rooms and operational depots.

The South West and South Wales areas were impacted earlier today, but not exceptionally so. Both areas have fewer than 3,000 customers affected and all incidents are currently resourced and being worked on.

Electricity North West have issued a press release, which begins:

Engineers from Electricity North West are working in difficult conditions today to restore power as Storm Doris hits the North West.

The region’s power network operator has restored supplies to around 5,000 properties throughout the morning following the Met Office’s amber weather warning for severe gales of 70 to 80mph and a yellow warning for snow to hit the North West today.

Around 2,500 properties remain without power as flying debris has hit lines and high winds make access difficult for repair teams. Properties are affected mainly in Lancashire, Manchester and the Peak district including250 properties currently without power in Horwich, Bolton.

 

[Edit – Feb 23rd 17:00]

It’s now 17:00 on Thursday February 23rd. WPD’s live power cut map is still down. However SSEN have issued a 4 PM update:

SSEN engineers are making good progress in reconnecting customers affected by damage to overhead lines and network equipment. Since midnight, power has been restored to over 29,000 homes, with approximately 8,000 homes currently without power. All faults are fully-resourced and we are working to restore power to all customers tonight.

The worst of the conditions have been observed in Oxfordshire, where around 5,000 customers are currently without power, as well as parts of Berkshire and Hampshire.

 

[Edit – Feb 23rd 18:30]

It’s now 18:30 on Thursday February 23rd. WPD’s live power cut map is still down! SP Energy Networks have now issued a press release:

The MET Office Amber warnings remain in place until 8pm tonight as Storm Doris continues to cause significant impact across the UK.

SP Energy Networks distribution licence area in Cheshire, Merseyside and North Wales has experienced extreme weather conditions today, with wind gusts of over 90mph experienced in exposed areas. Over the course of today we have restored power to over 50,000 customers impacted by this severe weather.

Our restoration efforts have been hampered today by the gale force winds making it unsafe for our engineering teams to work at height. The winds have now reduced somewhat, albeit we are still seeing wind gusts in excess of 50mph in exposed areas.
However, where it is safe to do so, our restoration efforts will continue this evening and tonight. As a result of the extensive damage experienced today, we now expect that some customers will be without power overnight.

Where possible, we will endeavour to make contact with those customers impacted to discuss welfare options. We have been working with the Red Cross who will help support our vulnerable customers impacted by today’s events.

Electricity North West have issued another press release:

Engineers from Electricity North West will work into the evening and through the night to restore the final properties affected by Storm Doris.

The region’s power network operator has restored supplies to around 6,700 properties throughout the day following the winds of 70 to 80mph in the North West.

800 properties remain without power in a number of small pockets, mainly across Lancashire as flying debris and fallen trees have hit power lines in the region.

Western Power Distribution have issued another severe weather update:

The current situation within WPD is still exceptionally busy, with the East Midlands, and even more so the West Midlands areas still having large numbers of customers off supply due to the effects of Storm Doris that passed through our area today.

Issued on: Thursday 23rd February – 6pm

There are approximately 20,000 customers in the West Midlands off supply and we have restored around a further 20,000 throughout the day. As of the last update the worst affected areas have been Hereford, Ludlow, Worcester, Telford and Stoke.

There are currently fewer than 10,000 customers off supply in the East Midlands with us having restored a further 10,000 approximately throughout the day.

Whilst busy, the volume of faults affecting the South West and South Wales have not been too bad, with all incidents being worked on and resourced. There are currently fewer than 1,500 customers off throughout the two areas and staff from those areas have been moved into the Midlands to assist where required.

Our contact centre has dealt with over 22,000 calls from customers with an average speed of response time of 6.7 seconds.

We have had one helicopter airborne today flying from Nottingham that has inspected two EHV faults in Stoke and Telford. Tomorrow, all four aircraft will be available from first light to aid and assist in repairs as required.

 

[Edit – Feb 23rd 20:00]

It’s now 20:00 on the evening of Thursday February 23rd. WPD’s live power cut map is operational again, and it’s moved to a dedicated subdomain! Here is what it reveals:

 

[Edit – Feb 23rd 22:30]

This will be our last update for today, at 22:30 on the evening of Thursday February 23rd. First of all WPD’s live power cut map, zoomed in on the Midlands:

Next the 20:00 update from Scottish and Southern:

Since midnight, power has been restored to over 30,000 homes, with approximately 4,000 homes currently without power. All faults are fully-resourced and engineers are working to restore power to all customers tonight.

Storm Doris brought severe winds, with gusts of up to 65mph, across the region. The worst of the conditions were felt in Oxfordshire, where around 2,500 customers are currently without power. Extra linesman and repair teams have been despatched to the area to aid restoration efforts. Parts of Berkshire and Hampshire were also affected.

Finally the 21:30 update from Scottish Power:

Over the course of the day our distribution licence area in Cheshire, Merseyside & North Wales has experienced extreme weather conditions, including winds in excess of 90mph. As a result of these storm force winds, our network has sustained a level of damage resulting in a loss of power for some of our customers. Despite the extremely challenging conditions, and the restrictions that our teams have faced working at heights in such extreme conditions, our engineers have worked tirelessly over the course of today to restore power to as many homes as possible, restoring power to over 66,000 people. However, a number of customers will remain without power overnight and we will make every effort to contact these customers tonight.

We continue to work to maximise our resource levels, with additional engineering teams from our Scottish distribution area already dispatched to support the restoration efforts as well as continuing to work with our contracting partners to secure additional resources. We will also be looking to mobilise helicopters tomorrow morning to help the fault finding process on some of the more challenging terrain.

For a warming nightcap after the blustery day here’s the GridWatch UK electricity generation mix tonight, including the minor contributors:

Will the United Kingdom Become an Electric Nation?

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Electric Nation is an OFGEM funded electric vehicle “smart charging” trial project which:

Aims to provide local electricity network operators with the tools to be able to ensure that their networks can cope with [the] massive new challenge [of local electricity networks becoming overloaded], whilst avoiding replacing cables and substations.

The always entertaining Bobby Llewellyn explains the problem with a little help from Roger Hey, Future Networks Manager of Western Power Distribution:

As Roger puts it:

The more cars that you put in a single area, the more stress that you’re going to put on. The network was never really designed to have so many things all in one place. It was designed for powering people’s homes, for cooking. It wasn’t originally designed for transportation fuel as well!

Carl Sanderson of BMW UK adds:

What happens when, let’s say, 25% of the motoring public are plugging in their car at a similar time? Are we going to see massive blackouts? Are the lights going to go out? I think it’s a key point that needs addressing.

Andy Eastlake of the Low Carbon Vehicle Partnership suggests a solution:

One of the challenges is energy storage, and if we’re putting a huge energy storage capability into the cars can we use that to balance the grid?

To which Bobby responds:

So what you’re talking about then is very much vehicle-to-grid, [energy] going both ways, communicating smartly, the whole development of that technology?

Andy outlines the case for “smart charging” instead of full blown V2G, but adds:

There’s a problem with electricity tariffs. We’re not allowed to have lots and lots of electricity tariffs because the perception was the market will be too complex, so that’s one of the things holding back electricity supply companies in delivering creative tariffs.

Ben Godfrey, also from WPD, tells Bobby something he didn’t already know:

Effectively for every EV we connect to the network, it’s adding an extra house.

and points out that:

The interesting thing about vehicles as well is that they follow where people go. People move from town centres in the day, which is where we have the big load, to domestic places in the evening which also mirrors the load on the electricity network. If we could use the storage built into the vehicles to move that power from cities out into domestic areas then that would replace the need for us to put in extra cables which is going to cause disruption to the network.

If we can harness vehicle-to-grid then that can save us from building any extra cables, digging up roads and causing lots of disruption.

Bobby adds:

And potentially from building new power stations. You could time shift that power to a certain extent.

All in all a remarkable good advertisement for full blown V2G at the launch of a “smart charging” trial! First things first though. Is your home currently connected to Western Power Distribution’s network?

If so and if you have or are getting an electric vehicle and if you haven’t yet taken advantage of the UK Government’s home charger grant you may well be interested in finding out more about the Electric Nation trial:

Electric Nation is seeking to recruit over 500 electric vehicle (EV) owners (including pure electric and plug-in hybrids) to take part in the largest trial of its kind. Participants will charge their cars at home using a smart charger which can manage when and how their vehicle battery charges. The findings of the trial will help electricity network operators to manage the effect of the additional load caused by charging EVs on the local electricity network. This is essential for the security of electricity networks in the future and the decarbonisation of the transport sector which is responsible for approximately 21% of the UK’s greenhouse gas emissions.

Storm Katie Cuts Power Across Southern England

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On Easter Saturday the Met Office announced the impending arrival of another named storm from across the Atlantic:

Storm Katie is forecast to affect southern England and south Wales on Easter Monday

Anticipating the development of an area of low pressure, which will affect southern England and south Wales on Easter Monday, The Met Office has decided to name the storm Katie. This will be the 11th named storm since last autumn.

A National Severe Weather Warning for strong winds has been issued, covering much of Easter Monday.

The Met Office also issued a severe weather warning for the winds from Storm Katie across Southern England:

Issued at: 1031 on Sat 26 Mar 2016
Valid from: 0115 on Mon 28 Mar 2016
Valid to: 1400 on Mon 28 Mar 2016

Winds will strengthen markedly across southern England and through the Bristol Channel from the start of Monday, with the potential for 50-60 mph gusts inland and 70 mph gusts around coasts exposed to the south. Whilst there is a low likelihood of all areas seeing these strong gusts for a time southern coastal counties from Hampshire eastwards look most likely to see the strongest winds. These will then ease from the southwest during the morning, clearing from the east early in the afternoon. Additional hazards may include large waves around exposed coasts as well as a period of heavy rain.

Please be aware of the potential for disruption to outdoor activities and travel, as well as the possibility of fallen trees and temporary interruptions to power supplies.

On Easter Sunday the Met Office’s “Chief Forecaster’s assessment” firmed up the forecast a bit, saying that:

There is increased confidence in the likelihood of a period of disruptive southerly winds, veering westerly later. Winds are likely to be strongest in southern coastal areas, but there is potential for some very strong, squally gusts inland during the morning before winds ease from the west during the day.

Now the morning of Easter Monday has arrived, as have those “temporary interruptions to power supplies”. Storm Katie has done her worst, and here’s how the damage looked at 08:00 BST. First of all here’s Western Power Distribution‘s current power cut map:

Further east here’s Scottish and Southern Energy Power Distribution‘s power cut map:

and here’s one from UK Power Networks‘ for South East England:

Unlike WPD, SSEPD and UKPN don’t publish real time tables of the number of properties without power. SSEPD are however providing a “Live Storm Feed” for Katie:

According to their latest news bulletins:

Southern Electric Power Distribution has more than 900 engineering, technical and support staff on duty to deal with Storm Katie, and since last night power has been restored to 40,300 customers.

There are currently 28,497 customers in West Sussex whose power supply have been affected by Storm Katie.

There are currently 4,152 customers in Berkshire whose power supply have been affected by Storm Katie.

There are currently 2,893 customers in Dorset whose power supply have been affected by Storm Katie.

According to the UKPN Press Office:

There are currently 19,000 properties without power across South East England (Kent, Surrey and Sussex)

SSEPD are also “Live Tweeting” about the problems Katie’s winds have caused their network:

Storm Imogen Follows Floods in South-West England

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The United Kingdom’s Met Office is just down the road from here in Exeter, and they have just announced that the newly named “Storm Imogen” is heading our way:

Imogen follows in the footsteps of her brother Henry further north and the unnamed storm that has just deposited 57.8 mm of rain on Okehampton in 24 hours:

whilst Exeter Airport endured gusts of wind up to 50 mph and a mere 21.0 mm of rainfall:

We have previously speculated about the effects of such storms on Western Power Distribution’s network in the South-West Peninsula, so here is how things look qualitatively at the moment, following today’s flooding:

and here’s the associated quantities

Here’s how Haldon Hill has been preconditioned for Imogen’s imminent arrival:

and here is the Met Office’s forecast [updated Sunday AM] for our back yard on Monday:

Do you suppose there will be another power cut here tomorrow?