Modest progress is reported in the areas of finance and investment, research and innovation and infrastructure, but minimal progress was made in social engagement and demand management.

In this context, progress is assessed against the recommendations of the last report.

Some of the progress recorded includes a wave of new public and private finance commitments and the development of innovative financial instruments improving access to financing and an increase in participation in key public and private sector research and innovation initiatives and improvements in capacity building.

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At the infrastructure level countries have set clear priorities and roadmaps for regional grid initiatives and have advanced bilateral and regional cross-border power exchange initiatives.

At the social engagement level, however, while several social support programmes were announced there is limited visibility into the alignment of development funding by governments and the multilateral development banks.

There also has been minimal progress on agreement among countries on the agreement of higher minimum energy performance standards.

The report, which in addition to the power sector reviews progress in the hydrogen, road transport, steel, buildings, cement and agriculture sectors, points to the “crucial action” needed during this decade to head off the worst effects of climate change.

While the transition to clean energy and sustainable solutions is accelerating across many sectors, global emissions are still increasing and countries’ nationally determined contributions on emissions reductions are not consistent with curbing temperature rise in line with international climate goals.

“Well-targeted international collaboration is a critical enabler at each stage of the Transition,” states the report, commenting that the ‘Breakthrough Agenda’ is designed to strengthen international collaboration across the major greenhouse gas emitting sectors of the global economy.

Overall the report finds insufficient progress in transitions to clean technologies and sustainable solutions over the past year and while current efforts are improving, they are not yet delivering the levels of investment and deployment required to meet international climate goals.

“The energy transition is moving quicker than many people think, but it needs to move faster still,” insists IEA executive director Fatih Birol.

“Our analysis shows that while some sectors are seeing stronger international collaboration, others are falling behind. Building on innovation, attracting investment and scaling up demand for new technologies are the fundamental building blocks for success. By delaying further, we are simply increasing the risks.”

Francesco La Camera, director-general of IRENA, comments that there is urgency to “overcome the systemic barriers across infrastructure, policy, and institutional capabilities”.

“And we must realign the way in which international cooperation works. A well-targeted international cooperation can determine whether we meet our collective promise to secure a climate-safe existence for current and future generations.”

Power sector recommendations

Recommendations for the power sector for the year ahead are:

1. Governments, working with key institutions and funds, should ensure that international support is available at better terms, including grants at early investment stages. Overall provision of resources should be increased, particularly towards technologies that have not achieved commercial maturity.
2. Governments and the development banks should work together to more strongly align development funding with targeted support for local jobs, skills and investment. Civil society, governments and industry should contribute to creating international centres of expertise on the just transition.
3. Governments should work through relevant initiatives to accelerate the identification of suitable demonstration projects, resource them appropriately and ensure high quality knowledge sharing structures are put in place.
4. Governments should work together to reassess the opportunities for cross-border and regional power interconnection and smart grids to support the transition to clean power systems. Countries and investors should support international efforts to identify top regional priorities for interconnections.
5. Countries, in consultation with industry, should collectively agree to higher minimum energy performance standards for high energy consuming appliances, supported by awareness campaigns and incentives, such as energy efficiency retrofit programmes.

The briefing, which was prepared by Beecham Research, indicates that out of 174.7 million LPWAN chipset shipments in 2022, 65.9 million were LoRa, while 22.4 million were NB-IoT, 45.4 million were LTE-M and the balance a combination of others including Sigfox and Wi-SUN.

By 2027, with growth expected of almost 20% per annum, shipments are projected to reach 424.8 million. Of these, 148.4 million are LoRa, 61.8 million NB-IoT, 107.1 million LTE-M and 107.5 million others.

(To give a broadly global picture, these numbers exclude China, which has adopted NB-IoT as the standard for massive IoT applications, whereas elsewhere a mixture of NB-IoT and LTE-M is offered by mobile operators).

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“Choosing the right connectivity technology for a use case is the most important decision an end-user will make,” states Donna Moore, chairwoman and CEO of the LoRa Alliance.

She comments that without the in-house expertise, solutions providers can help find the right-fit technology.

“Solutions providers analyse use cases, provide education on available technologies and allow project managers to envision the full scope of an IoT deployment. System integrators bring those ideas to life by integrating IoT sensor data into a platform that consolidates data from numerous end-user platforms.”

The briefing reviews the key features of LoRa as a long range, low power technology, initially developed for utility application, with the ability to penetrate concrete and steel and provide connectivity underground, but also finding application in smart building and smart city IoT use cases, particularly where low latency is not a key requirement.

As a result approximately 35-40% of all LoRaWAN deployments are estimated in the utility sector but the other sectors are increasing rapidly.

The briefing also reviews IoT use cases in the three sectors, with its use in the utilities sector for smart gas and water metering to improve the control and measurement of these commodities.

Current example projects cited include an over 3 million LoRa water meter digitalisation by Veolia and subsidiary Birdz in France and a Middle East utility harnessing low Earth orbit satellites with LoRaWAN to gain visibility on its approximately two million smart meters.

Smart building trends include an increasing emphasis on safety and comfort, with IoT applications such as HVAC and lighting control and air quality monitoring.

In cities, IoT applications include smart parking and street lighting, water and waste management and environmental sensing.

The aim of the app is to enable users to optimise how and when energy is used around their homes, integrating smart devices, such as electric vehicle charge points and solar panels, regardless of their brand.

“There’s a lot of clever technology out there that helps people manage the energy in their homes but, incredibly, there’s nothing in the UK that works with different brands and devices, meaning people can’t currently control all the energy devices across their home in one place,” said Swarm Co-Founder and Chief Technology Officer Anthony Piggott.

“We knew we could create something to change this and with [Opencast’s] tech expertise and our knowledge of the energy sector, we have the ability to make something really exciting: one app to control every aspect of energy in the home.”

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Demonstration and testing of the new app are set to take place in a purpose-built energy hub at the Hoults Yard business village in Newcastle, where the two companies are based, with the first iteration planned for launch in autumn 2023.

Growing UK consumer interest in green innovations

The availability of such apps as Swarm’s would appear to be timely, with a new survey from McKinsey & Company of more than 2,000 consumers revealing a soaring demand for green energy innovations to curb high energy prices and reduce household bills.

McKinsey reports that as wholesale prices have started to fall enabling retailers to offer lower prices the incentive to switch suppliers, after record low levels, has increased and a third of consumers are considering switching, while almost half are willing to adopt some form of time-of-use tariffs.

Further, a quarter are also willing to buy additional green products and services from energy retailers such as energy management services, solar panels, electric vehicle chargers and heat pumps.

With this suppliers also have the opportunity to attract more customers and diversify their offerings by curbing costs, simplifying processes and boosting public awareness of new energy products and services, McKinsey indicates.

Kiril Bliznakov, Senior Partner at McKinsey, says the survey findings point to the driving of a more competitive market where low cost and low carbon tariffs, products and services will be the key differentiators of the future.

“The ‘gamification’ of energy services and rising demand for energy-as-a-service offerings will create new opportunities for suppliers to increase long-term customer loyalty and to both decarbonise and cut household bills.”
 

The concept, an approach to managing the vegetation in the spaces beneath power lines – so-called ‘grid corridors’ – has come to be adopted increasingly by system operators but its rollout across Europe remains elusive.

This is according to the Renewables Grid Initiative, which reports engaging with the topic for many years and now taking the next steps to developing and implementing policies to advance it.

Integrated vegetation management is focussed on the ecological health of the grid corridors, while still removing vegetation which could interfere with the system security by touching a line.

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Typically, this involves the selective removal of fast growing trees and invasive species, while promoting low growing native plants and creating new habitats that thrive among these plant communities, as well as exploring new economic opportunities for local stakeholders.

Resultant benefits have been documented for nature, people and the grid operators alike, ranging from improvements in local biodiversity to the engagement of local actors in vegetation management support.

Indeed, a cost-benefit analysis by Elia of an initiative run together with the French TSO RTE and the Ecofirst cooperative consultancy has estimated integrated vegetation management to be up to almost four times less expensive than traditional management over 30 years.

As the first of the next steps, the Renewables Grid Initiative has launched a series of workshops for European TSOs and DSOs to share experiences and discuss pathways forward.

Outcomes from the first of these in June, which focussed largely on the LIFE Elia-RTE project, were the identification of three key priorities of which one is the need for guidance and potentially standardised methodologies to collect and disseminate the benefits of integrated vegetation management.

A second is the harmonisation of regulatory remuneration and financing mechanisms across the EU and the need for guidance on the funding mechanisms available.

Third is support on balancing nature restoration with access to the grid assets for maintenance purposes and the need for bird protection.

These and other activities will now be addressed further in the second of the Initiative’s steps, a new working group of European TSOs and DSOs, which has been formed with the aim of moving towards a coordinated approach to integrated vegetation management in the region.

These are a Community Fund Grant programme to support innovative projects aligned with the organisation’s mission and a crowdloan scheme to participate in the parachain slot auction.

The Community Fund Grant programme, which has been initiated by the Energy Web Chain Validators, is aimed to support the development of tools and infrastructure to accelerate the real-world adoption of the EW Chain and related open-source software in support of the global energy transition.

Based on specific requirements applicants must meet, it features a tiered grant system intended to support different types of projects, from small-scale ideas such as building simple components to improve Energy Web’s tech stack to larger ones such as building new solutions or conducting pilots involving energy assets.

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The amounts available range up to €25,000 ($26,850) for smaller projects of not more than four months duration up to >€100,000 ($107,380) for projects up to 1 year in length.

With Energy Web entering the Polkadot environment and developing its next-generation Energy Web X blockchain, the opportunities for innovation are even greater, the organisation says.

“Impact-driven innovation and open-source technologies are deeply rooted in Energy Web’s mission and values. Applicants will be required to tackle tangible challenges and must be willing to share project results in a transparent way.”

Applications are being accepted on a rolling basis and are then subject to review and assessment.

Polkadot crowdloan

The objective of the crowdloan initiative is to support Energy Web to gain a parachain slot for Energy Web X on the Polkadot Relay Chain and thereby enable it to leverage the security and scalability benefits inherent in that infrastructure.

However, due to the limited availability of the parachain slots, a competitive process is in place to allocate them.

To determine which projects get to connect their parachains to the Polkadot Relay Chain, lease periods – known as ‘time slots’ – are auctioned off, with each lease period lasting for 12 weeks.

Projects can bid for up to eight slots at once in a crowdloan, for a total of 96 weeks of lease time.

The crowdloan scheme works with contributors lending their DOT (Polkadot) tokens for the Energy Web X launch via the Polkadot crowdloan mechanism. In the event of not winning an auction, the contributed DOT tokens are immediately returned. Otherwise, if an auction is won, the tokens will be returned at the ending of the lease, 96 weeks after it begins.

To incentivise participation, Energy Web has instituted a rewards programme offering 1$EWT (Energy Web token) for every 1$DOT placed.

Funds raised via the crowdloan are being used in auctions beginning on September 5, 2023 and concluding between September 19 and September 24, 2023.

If awarded a parachain slot, the launch would be targeted for October 23, 2023.

While the full visual design has not yet been made public, ‘New Energies’ is described as a multi-functional system aimed to make the most of the natural elements – sun, light, wind and rain – and combining energy efficiency with an optimal balance between the investments and the economic, environmental and social benefits.

In this way it is intended to be versatile and to meet the need to modernise the electrical infrastructure with a sustainable footprint throughout its lifecycle.

Features include rooftop solar panels, a porous floor that lets in rainwater and prevents the formation of heat islands and a wave fence with a modular grid design that lets in light and wind.

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In addition, plants will be grown all around the substation with the adoption of the Miyawaki method, which involves the dense planting of fast growing smaller native species under taller trees.

The primary goal of the challenge was to create a sustainable modular architecture for primary substations, with a high level of versatility and replicability and optimisation of the space.

A key goal was that the infrastructure needs to blend in with the environment, with an innovative design combining safety with flexibility and with improved visual, functional and spatial impact.

The challenge attracted 36 entries from engineers, academia, designers and architecture and construction companies from 16 countries, and was adjudged by a similarly multi-disciplinary panel.

Other proposals that were awarded special prizes and will be implemented in existing facilities were from the Rome-based architecture practice NEXT Urban Solutions in collaboration with the visual artist Filippo Riniolo, by architects Andrea Bautista and Jessica García Huachez and from the Milan design practice Vittorio Grassi Architects.

Enel states that the primary substation design challenge forms part of a larger process that Enel Grids has set in motion aimed at modernising and redesigning the key elements of the distribution networks.

Earlier redesigns have focussed on the design and structure of meters, street cabinets, secondary substations and power line supports and the next step is on the larger and more complex infrastructure.

The approximately 30 different challenges launched over the last two years have led to hundreds of proposals based on more circular practices “to increase grid automation and digitalisation, deliver state-of-the-art solutions that ensure safety and productivity in field operations and reduce the environmental and economic impact of building new facilities, with a special focus on biodiversity and harmonious integration with the local environment and thereby eliminate the carbon footprint of the grids”, the company states.

The study, aimed to investigate the impact of the large-scale integration of hydrogen electrolysers to the grid, points to hydrogen as complementary to electrification for decarbonisation targets rather than a target in itself, with the first applications likely to be for substituting grey hydrogen in present industrial processes.

However, electrolysers will progressively become an additional system element, which implies that it should be planned and operated synergically with the rest of the energy system.

The report identifies four key issues, i.e. the relationship between supply and demand, the use cases and their impact on the grids, flexibility and the impact on system planning.

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As a new system component, the recognition of green hydrogen requires an ad-hoc scheme, valid across jurisdictions, for the infeed electricity encompassing the additionality principle, in order to avoid double counting and greenwashing as well as cannibalisation of other decarbonisation processes.

In addition, there needs to be both geographical and time correlation to ensure the utilised renewable energies are not impaired by grid congestion.

At the grid operation level, in order to better exploit the variability of renewable energies, the flexible operation of the power system requires to decouple as much as possible the profiles of green hydrogen production from hydrogen consumption.

This means having enough storage elements both in the power system and in the hydrogen system.

With this, the hydrogen system also can provide long-term flexibility, through storage of excess renewables in gas reservoirs, as well as adequacy support.

Short-term flexibility services also are possible via demand response and balancing from electrolysers.

In terms of planning hydrogen projects should be designed and assessed starting from the end use case, volumes and costs, not from the supply side, which must follow the needs of the end user.

From the energy system point of view, the deployment pace of electrolysers should match the increase of the large amount of additional renewables volumes required for producing green hydrogen, in order not to cannibalise other decarbonisation processes.

Other infrastructure, such as pipelines and storage facilities, also need to be coordinated with grid developments as well as end user needs.

The report also notes ‘hydrogen valleys’ as a promising configuration for starting the development of comprehensive use cases.

In conclusion, the report highlights the need for a ‘one system’ view, noting that the viability of hydrogen projects is both case and country-dependent.

Win-win solutions matching business needs with system requirements must be found in order to maximise the benefits for all stakeholders.

For a smooth but fast transition phase, repurposing the gas grid, also through initial blending, is suggested as a viable and smart option to enable a gradual phase-out of natural gas and set-up of a hydrogen market.

The project EDGE (Energy from Distributed Resources for the Management of the E-Distribuzione Network) aims to test and establish the most appropriate solution for the procurement of local ancillary services and related remuneration in Italy.

The project will initially cover areas in four provinces, Cuneo and Venice in the north of Italy and Benevento and Foggia in the south.

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“We are incredibly excited to launch this new market alongside E-Distribuzione, which is setting a new, leading standard for what can be achieved through DSO flexibility markets,” says James Johnston, CEO and co-founder of Piclo.

“This unparalleled development across Europe marks a new era for these markets including short-term flexibility services, greater integrations and end-to-end automation and ultimately improved network decarbonisation and resilience. We can’t wait to get going.”

The EDGE project is focussed on providing active power regulation services, in order to comply with network constraints in both normal operating conditions and reconfigurations caused by failures or scheduled works.

Potential resources that can participate include production and consumption units, battery storage units and electric vehicle charging systems with delivery from both residential and non-residential users.

Piclo Flex as an independent marketplace will provide the end-to-end solution to acquire and dispatch the flexibility services to E-Distribuzione’s networks.

For Piclo the project marks a further step in the growing use of the platform around the world by network operators, including four DNOs and the TSO in the UK as well as others in Ireland, Portugal, Lithuania and New York state in the US.

As of 2022, Piclo Flex had 55,000 registered flexible assets representing 16.6GW of flex capacity, with flexibility contracts awarded totalling £58 million (US$73 million) and 1.1GW+ of flexible capacity procured.

E-Distribuzione is part of the Enel Group and is the largest DSO in Italy.

The EDGE project was initiated in response to the EU’s Clean Energy Package and the growing need for flexibility in Italy, with the government’s plan to add at least 70GW of renewable energy capacity by 2030 to cover 30% of the gross energy consumption.

Bitcoin mining energy consumption revised down

The Cambridge Bitcoin Electricity Consumption Index, one of the key resources in this area, has had its first major revision since its launch in 2019, leading to a reduction, albeit relatively small, in consumption.

For example, for 2021 where the largest discrepancy occurs, the earlier estimate of 104TWh is revised downward by 15TWh to 89TWh.

For 2023 the estimated anticipated consumption based on the year-to-mid-August is 70.4TWh, rather than 75.7TWh of the earlier model.

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The Cambridge team attribute the change to the modelling of the Bitcoin mining hardware and technology, taking into account both the increased efficiency and power of the evolving application-specific integrated circuits (ASICs).

With the progressive reduction in chip size, there has been a corresponding reduction in power needed to transmit data.

However, this now appears to have slowed and steadied as the advances have approached the physical limits of semiconductor technology, with smaller chip manufacture becoming more challenging and expensive.

The Cambridge team expresses confidence in their estimates and regards each update as a progressive step toward enhancing their reliability, but the team acknowledges that Bitcoin’s actual electricity consumption remains elusive and can only be approximated.

Moreover, while electricity consumption is a crucial element in determining Bitcoin’s environmental footprint, it is one and the energy sources used in mining are just as important. Further research is planned to focus on developing a more nuanced perspective of Bitcoin’s electricity mix and more closely examining the climate risks and opportunities associated with cryptocurrency mining.

Samsung to add generative AI to home appliances

Samsung has been reported as planning to add a generative AI feature to its home appliances in the next year.

Yoo Mi-young, head of the software development team of Samsung’s digital appliances division, was reported speaking at the IFA consumer electronics show in Berlin: “Generative AI technologies will be applied to voice, vision and display” to enable the household electronic products to have a better understanding of what consumers do and want and to be able to respond accordingly.

It will enable the gadgets to communicate with users in a more conversational manner, and to better respond to their questions based on past exchanges and in context.

They will also be able to provide recipes and dietary suggestions based on for example the food ingredients stored in the refrigerator.

Yoo Mi-young was also quoted as reporting the development of an energy-efficient chip to process the increasing amounts of data of smart appliances, with features such as generative AI.

Hydrogen-powered van doubles the range of EV counterparts

Canadian hydrogen company First Hydrogen has reported that its hydrogen fuel cell powered light van supplied to GB fleet management provider Rivus has achieved an “unbeatable range”, easily more than doubling the upwards range to 240km of other modern light commercial electric vehicles.

The vehicle was trialed with Rivus for just over 4 weeks, and covered over 1,100km in that time. Tests were completed on diverse routes, providing data on how the vehicle operates under different conditions including urban city centre driving and extra urban routes covering both low-speed city centre roads and motorways.

The tests also covered the van both empty and loaded to 90% of its maximum weight capacity, reflecting the way vans will be used in the real world.

The vehicle was found to be not heavily affected by the speed or the payload, and performed well under the different load cycles compared to the electric counterparts, which can experience reductions in range by approximately 10%.

“The main benefit of the vehicle is the refuelling times are quicker than battery electric vehicles charge times. And of course, unlike internal combustion engines, hydrogen vehicles produce zero emissions,” Gemma Horne, Warranty Controller at Rivus, commented.

With grid connection lead times a key issue in accelerating the scale up of renewables, top factors identified include the pre-occupied capacity of the grid although not yet physically congested, permitting, materials shortages and poor qualification of plant connection technical project designers and errors in the projects.

This comes with the majority of survey respondents stating that connection times do not match the expectations of customers or government, although just over half say they do match the expectation of their DSO.

The grids in Europe, as they are elsewhere, are being challenged with the rapid scale up of renewables. Further the pressure is expected to increase with the increased demand of electrification.

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This is projected to require a five-fold upswing in intermittent generation by 2050.

With the two main technical challenges of network inadequacy and instability, it is the time for grid operators and policymakers to rethink current planning, connection and operation processes as well as to take responsibility for coordinating among energy system stakeholders to construct a future-proof 21st century power grid, states E.DSO in the report, which was prepared in collaboration with McKinsey.

Based on measures taken by DSOs and other input to address these issues, the report sets out recommendations to support the connection of more renewables to the existing grids and to minimise their connection lead times.

Number one is to reduce the permitting times, mainly through automation and digitalisation.

There should be transparent, and ideally EU-harmonised, rules for congestion management to facilitate the use of non-firm connections and transparent rules for handling connection queues, improving information to the client and minimizing the possibility of litigation. .

On technical skills, improvement should be supported, for instance by setting up an online or ‘in person’ training to certify the skills and knowledge necessary to carry out grid connection processes and education programmes should be promoted.

For grid management and planning the use of non-firm connections should be evaluated and reactive power management should be introduced.

Renewables advanced functionalities recommended include the implementation of droop control and digitalisation of the renewable connection.

In addition, smart grid control and ADMS should be leveraged to achieve integrated and real-time observability and control for the entire distribution network and smart inverter functions used at LV level to facilitate grid management and, in turn, possibly enable additional DERs connection.

Sweden, Denmark, Finland, Estonia, Spain, Norway, Luxembourg, Latvia, Italy, France, Malta, Slovenia and the Netherlands have reached the 80% penetration rate.

A further four countries, Portugal, Austria, Great Britain and Ireland, are progressing their rollouts, with three of them targeting 80% by 2024.

However, six countries, Belgium, Croatia, Poland, Slovakia, Lithuania and Hungary, have barely started theirs, while five, Bulgaria, Cyprus, Czechia, Germany and Greece, have very few or no smart meters.

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These are among the findings in the 2023 retail market study – based on 2022 data – from the Agency for the Cooperation of Energy Regulators (ACER) and the Council of European Energy Regulators (CEER).

The report, which is focussed largely on the energy crisis and the increases in energy prices in 2022 with recommendations based on the lessons from that, regrets that the 11 countries have barely started the smart metering process.

Their non-availability is a key barrier to consumers receiving regular and accurate metering data in a timely manner. Without that, they are unable to take advantage of the opportunities to respond to real-time price signals.

Moreover, for innovative market players, the lack of smart meter rollout can be a barrier to market entry and thus to competition. As new suppliers enter the market and offer real-time billing, consumers may respond by switching to other suppliers.

As far as switching – a key measure of consumer engagement – goes, for both electricity and gas the rates decreased in over half of member states in 2022 compared to previous years, although increasing in others. Possible reasons for these lower switching rates are related to pricing and the emergency measures taken during the energy crisis.

The other measure of consumer engagement reviewed in the report is energy communities. At this stage, the impact of energy communities is relatively small in terms of the number of initiatives, people involved and citizen-owned renewable capacity, but the interest of citizens in getting involved seems to have increased during the energy crisis.

In order to facilitate their development a clear and workable definition of energy communities and an enabling framework with the transposition of European rules in national legislations are needed.

Retail market structure

The report notes the heightened risk of the energy crisis triggered an uptick in the number of retail suppliers exiting the retail electricity market, reaching 62 due to financial problems in the residential market in 2021, up from eight in the previous year. However, the number dropped again to 23 in 2022, almost half of them in Spain.

Nevertheless, new suppliers have continued to enter the market with the number relatively high in countries where many suppliers exiting the market.

Similar patterns have been observed for supplier exits in the gas retail market.

From a supplier perspective, a key lesson learned from the energy crisis was to keep open lines of communication with all customers.

In response to increased prices, consumer complaints increased in 2022, primarily related – where data is available – to invoicing/billing and debt-collection and by almost half and double respectively compared to 2021.

While some energy companies’ customer services struggled to cope with the unexpectedly high volume of contacts, others found that engaging with their customers created opportunities to help consumers through the energy crisis, to the benefit of both the customer and the supplier.

Engaging with customers will therefore be key to the energy transition, the report states. Smart metering is one of the tools to facilitate this communication. Offering dynamic price contracts, in addition to hybrid or fixed price contracts, is another way of encouraging consumer participation from the demand side of the market.

Other findings in the report include the increasing share of electric vehicles in national new car registrations, although markedly different in different countries with the highest increases in Norway, Sweden and Denmark but the lowest in Cyprus, Slovakia and Czechia.

Another is the almost 40% increase in heat pump sales in 2022 compared with 2021, with consumers encouraged by the high energy prices.

The use of heat pumps will contribute to achieving the national and EU climate targets especially in the building sector. To meet these commitments, heat pump sales are expected to continue to grow.

The integration, believed to be a first for quantum-based cyber protection in smart meters, sees quantum computing-hardened encryption keys integrated into all Honeywell’s smart meters for gas, water and electricity.

This enhanced security is aimed to set a new benchmark for protection against data breaches and to help ensure the uninterrupted operation of the utilities infrastructure.

“By integrating Quantinuum’s encryption technology into our smart meters, we’re advancing data security for our customers and shaping the dialogue on how the utility industries should approach cybersecurity in the quantum era,” says Hamed Heyhat, President of Smart Energy and Thermal Solutions at Honeywell.

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“This integration underscores the necessity for continuous innovation to stay ahead of the evolving threat landscape. It is a level of protection that is imperative in our increasingly digital and interconnected world.”

Quantinuum’s Quantum Origin generates keys through quantum computing-enhanced randomness – a feature of the quantum world – which makes them unpredictable and thereby able to significantly enhance the data security.

Specifically a quantum cryptographic seed is generated on a quantum computer, which is then verified for strength and the keys are generated.

Tony Uttley, President and COO of Quantinuum, comments that robust cybersecurity requires a multifaceted approach, taking advantage of the latest technologies.

“Our work with Honeywell demonstrates the importance of using the power of today’s quantum computers to create a more resilient cyber infrastructure to better protect customers.”

Quantum Origin is designed for both devices and infrastructure, with keys generated directly into devices or on demand via the cloud.

The smart meter products with Quantum Origin from Honeywell are available now to customers in North America and Europe.

In a new study on the region’s electricity market design, Eurelectric states that with around 70% of the planned new renewable capacity being connected to the distribution grids, these require reinforcement and expansion.

But for efficient and timely connection, the way the grids are developed needs to change from an essentially reactive approach to a ‘build-for-the-future’ approach that includes inter alia anticipatory investments.

“Getting our electricity networks fit for net zero should be a top priority in the coming years, both at EU and national level,” says Kristian Ruby, Secretary General of Eurelectric.

“This requires a new mindset among regulators and legislators. One that anticipates Europe’s capacity needs to integrate more renewable projects, and one that accommodates unprecedented electrification of transport, buildings and industry to match the speed and scale needed for Europe’s energy transition.”

The REPowerEU plan anticipates around 50 to 60 million heat pumps, 65 to 70 million electric vehicles (EVs) and over 600GW of additional renewable capacity by 2030.

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A scarcity of grid capacity translates into longer waits for connections, more congested areas and higher costs for network users.

In its earlier ‘Decarbonisation Speedways’ study, Eurelectric found that the EU currently invests €23 billion (US$25 billion) per year in grid infrastructure. However, the investment in distribution grids should reach no less than €38 billion per year until 2030 and up to €100 billion per year until 2050 to deliver on the decarbonisation’s agenda.

Eurelectric proposes in its report that the distribution networks should be planned at least 5 years ahead, with the option of reaching 10 years and with a 2050 horizon projection.

Further regulators must be flexible on DSO investment instruments, removing regulatory obstacles and adopting output-based remuneration taking into account both capex and opex.

EU policies and funds also must promote investments in the physical dimensioning of the grids. In this connection, dynamic line rating is one of the basic means to expand capacity.

Likewise, significant digitalisation efforts are needed and should be incentivised for grid management and forecasting and flexibility should be promoted, with local production and consumption stimulated.

A key for infrastructure development is permitting and Eurelectric urges for a “dedicated and permanently simplified procedure” for grid development, including a possible ‘one-stop-shop’ concept for a single permit for a generation project and the associated grid expansion.

Underlying much of these actions is the need for accurate information and Eurelectric calls for “robust data-sharing mechanisms” among the various players.

The retrofit, which encompasses electricity, gas and water meters, is aimed to enable remote meter reading in the diverse environments around the capital Jakarta.

There the meters are in locations including inside private apartments, residential areas, industrial water utilities and shopping malls, which has resulted in meter reading being both challenging and expensive.

Chen Deyu, CEO at Sindcon, says ST Microelectronics’ STM32WLE5 LoRaWAN wireless microcontroller was selected “for its high integration benefits to our customers and because it enhances performance, size, security and power consumption.”

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The STM32WLE5 wireless MCU is a sub-GHz wireless microcontroller featuring an Arm Cortex-M4 core operating at 48MHz.

The MCU contains 256kb of Flash memory, 64kb of SRAM, LoRa modulation, and AES 256-bit encryption.

With the STM32WLE5, Sindcon’s retrofitted meters contain an advanced battery management system that can support accurate remote readings for up to 10 years.

The project is Sindcon’s first deployment in Indonesia using the STM32WLE5CC wireless MCU and is expected to be completed by the end of 2023.

Sindcon is involved in several LoRaWAN smart meter installations in Indonesia.

Over the past five years, the company has installed more than 1,000 LoRaWAN smart gas meters for restaurants and other commercial customers in more than 20 shopping malls in the country.

A recently reported new customer is Indonesia KFC, which has adopted Sindcon’s gas meter technology.

In another project, Sindcon has partnered with IoT solution provider IoT Kreasi Indonesia on prepaid gas metering in Jakarta for the country’s state-owned gas transmission and distribution company PGN Group – believed to be a first in Southeast Asia.

In the first phase, some 2,000 LoRaWAN prepaid gas meters have been deployed in collaboration with Chint, whose G1.6 model gas meter has been re-engineered to offer prepayment and LoRaWAN wireless data transmission.

Sindcon also has partnered with IoT Kreasi Indonesia on Semtech LoRa and LoRaWAN based smart electricity and water meter deployments in multi-tenant residential buildings.

The solution, named Synaps (Synchronous Analysis and Protection System), is for fault detection, classification and location using AI and machine learning to reduce faults on the LV network.

It works by using sensors at a substation and feeder level to detect anomalies in grid performance and via a ‘digital twin’ of the network pinpoints the probable location of intermittent faults.

With the solution, which was developed with UK government network innovation support in partnership with Scottish & Southern Electricity Networks and UK Power Networks, the time and cost of fault detection could be cut by up to two-thirds.

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Early results from the solution show it can identify the probability of future failure by >95% and location accuracy >3 m, including spurs.

Paul Beck, Gridkey and Innovation Director at Lucy Electric, comments that detecting and repairing underground intermittent faults is often complex and costly.

“This exciting technology, when coupled with our existing GridKey monitoring system, allows improved fault management specifically the ability to carry out preventative maintenance before larger faults occur, delivering significant savings and reducing customer outages.”

Stewart Reid, Head of Future Networks at Scottish and Southern Electricity Networks, where Synaps is monitoring 16 circuits, says the solution is “already improving our service and benefitting our customers through a more reliable network at lower cost.”

Chino Atako, Senior Asset Engineer at UK Power Networks, which has seven circuits being monitored, says that learnings for so far indicate its potential to deliver significant ‘customer interruption’ and ‘customer minutes lost’ benefits.

The AI solution uses the ‘digital twin’ to simulate faults in millions of scenarios, with machine learning technology then comparing this to the measured network data captured when there is a current transient.

This is considered a highly effective way of locating cable faults as it works not just with large transients where there is an immediate chance of the fuse operating, but also with very small transients typical of the start of a cable fault.

Synaps is now being provided by Lucy Electric under the product name COPPsystem (Cable outage prediction and prevention).

Meanwhile trials are continuing to make it progressively more accurate and to get more experience of different cable types and network architectures.

In the future the plan is to extend its capability to the MV and HV networks, in particular offshore applications, where submarine cable faults account for up to 80% of insurance claims by operators.

In a new document, E.DSO states that a “forward-looking understanding of the needed investments and necessary reforms to the current reference legislative and regulatory frameworks” is needed as part of the “bold action” towards achieving net zero emissions by 2050.

E.DSO members account for a very significant part of the current and future investments in European power grids.

But the role of DSOs is constantly evolving and will soon become almost extremely complex, requiring radical change in the way they function and operate with the rapid growth with the massive influx of renewables, change in customer behaviours and rapid electrification.

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With time of the essence, significant leaps are required rather than piecemeal steps and must begin by empowering the distribution networks, where over 85% of the renewables will be connected.

E.DSO sets out four key pledges for the future grid, with the aim “to inspire policymakers, industry stakeholders and customers to prioritise grid modernisation, enabling a sustainable future for Europe”.

1. The role of the DSOs must not be overlooked, as they have been relatively until now primarily from an industrial perspective rather than solely from a regulatory standpoint.

E.DSO advocates for the establishment of regular dialogue between policymakers and the leading DSOs to enable a continuous exchange of ideas and expertise to inform policy decisions and ensure alignment with the real needs of the distribution grid, as well as inclusion of E.DSO in high-level policy discussions related to the distribution grid and investments.

2. Grid investments shall be high on the EU agenda, with distribution grids the backbone of the digital and energy transition.

E.DSO advocates for enhanced relationships between the national regulatory authorities and DSOs, the creation of regulatory incentives that reward DSOs for making anticipatory investments in grid infrastructure and the implementation of policies that encourage electrification in sectors like transportation and heating.

3. Grid technologies and manufacturing capabilities should be European, reflecting their vital role in the reinforcement and expansion of the region’s distribution level infrastructure.

E.DSO advocates for support and incentives for companies to establish development and manufacturing capabilities in Europe and the establishment of a dedicated financial framework to encourage these activities.

4. The workforce in the DSO industry requires rebuilding, with the looming challenge of the impending retirement wave over the next decade.

E.DSO advocates for the introduction of target investments to address workforce challenges, the establishment of industry-recognised certifications and standards for clean energy-related skills and the establishing of a Net-Zero Industry Academy to equip individuals and industries with the necessary knowledge and skills.

Electrification and renewables top McKinsey’s tech trends

McKinsey’s Technology Trends Outlook 2023 report has electrification and renewables as the largest of the 15 trends identified in terms of interest and investment.

The survey finds there was a $288 billion equity investment in the area in 2022 and a 27% increase in job postings over the previous year, which is also among the largest recorded for all the trends.

Alongside this climate tech beyond electrification and renewables, such as carbon capture, attracted less interest, with $86 billion equity investment and a modest 8% increase in job postings.

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Other tech trends identified include applied AI, which tops the innovation axis, next-gen software development, cloud and edge computing and web3, these and others are all identical to the previous year.

Except for the one new entrant to the line-up, namely generative AI. McKinsey records generative AI as representing the next frontier for AI and also attributes to providing much of the credit for an observed resurgence of enthusiasm in the first half of 2023 about technology’s potential to catalyse progress in business and society after a tumultuous 2022.

Building upon existing technologies such as applied AI and industrialising machine learning, generative AI has high potential and applicability across most industries, states McKinsey.

Interest in the topic, as gauged by news and internet searches, increased threefold from 2021 to 2022 and generative AI is poised to add as much as $4.4 trillion in economic value from use cases that increase productivity.

DEWA innovates on battery performance

Dubai Electricity and Water Authority (DEWA)’s Research and Development (R&D) Centre has filed a new patent for an innovation for improving the performance of electrodes in lithium-ion batteries, sodium–sulphur batteries and electrolyte distribution batteries.

This, a low-cost, environmentally friendly method, is achieved by treating the electrodes chemically using a polymer to increase the number of active groups on the surface of the electrodes, which leads to improving their performance.

The patent supports the pilot project for energy storage that DEWA has inaugurated at the Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum Solar Park using Tesla’s lithium-ion battery solution. The project has a power capacity of 1.21MW and an energy capacity of 8.61MWh with a life span of up to 10 years.

“DEWA relies on research and innovation to support the development of energy storage technologies and increase the share of clean and renewable energy,” says HE Saeed Mohammed Al Tayer, MD and CEO of DEWA.

“This supports the Dubai Clean Energy Strategy 2050 and the Dubai Net Zero Carbon Emissions Strategy 2050 to provide 100% of Dubai’s total power production capacity from clean energy sources by 2050.”

This pilot project is the second battery energy storage pilot project by DEWA at the solar park. The first project was implemented in collaboration with AMPLEX–NGK to install and test a sodium sulphur energy solution with a power capacity of 1.2MW and an energy capacity of 7.5MWh.

Solar table for gardens

German solar technology innovator Technaxx is launching its latest product – a solar table for householders to place in gardens or on balconies or terraces and which can double both as a table and a solar power generator.

The table, which is approximately 173cmx114cm in size and can seat up to eight people, has a fold-up top that can be adjusted to set angles up to 35o to maximise the solar generation capacity and produce up to 410W peak power.

With it is a pre-assembled micro inverter, which converts the generated solar power into AC and can be easily plugged into a household socket to supply power to the home.

NYSEG, a subsidiary of Avangrid, is to deploy LineVision’s non-contact LiDAR sensors to introduce dynamic line rating in the Hornell area of New York.

The goal of this ‘non-wires alternative’ is to reduce grid congestion with real-time data to enhance the capacity of the lines.

Traditionally, lines have been operated using ‘static’ line ratings based on fixed values.

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However, with the real-time data combining properties such as sag, temperature and the forecast weather conditions, the capacity can be determined on a ‘dynamic’ basis to enable increases in the capacity without potentially large and costly upgrades.

“We know that we have a critical role in building a smarter, more resilient network that will enable us to deliver clean energy to more customers,” commented Patricia Nilsen, president and CEO of NYSEG and RG&E.

“Investments in innovation like this are very exciting because it will benefit our customers in multiple ways.”

The sensors will be installed on two of the company’s transmission lines – one from Elma in Erie County to Strykersville in Wyoming County and the other from Warsaw to Perry in Wyoming County.

Funding for the project was awarded to Avangrid and LineVision through round two of NYSERDA’s Future Grid Challenge programme.

Capacity optimisation is crucial for the large-scale integration of renewable energies, with their potential for congestion.

New York state’s Climate Leadership and Community Protection Act (CLCPA) goals to achieve 70% renewable electricity by 2030 call for an additional 10,000MW solar capacity and 9,000MW offshore wind capacity.

Such an increase would likely cause significant congestion on transmission lines.

Twenty years after the first publication of the IEC 61850 standard in 2003, the utility transmission and distribution businesses and operating environments have changed beyond recognition.

Then the first tentative steps into the digital world were taken with the digitalization of substations.

Though the concept of smartening and automating the grids was starting to emerge with the rolling out of smart meters, successive technological advancements have opened more new and innovative applications.

Alongside this, the transition to net zero is leading to the accelerated integration of utility-scale and residential distributed energy sources to the grids, while wide-scale electrification across sectors such as transportation, heavy industry and home appliances is introducing changes and uncertainties unprecedented for the system operators.

At the same time, the legacy communications technologies that have formed the foundations of power grids today, such as time division multiplexing interfaces, and analogue E&M interfaces used in devices such as relays and remote terminal units, have passed beyond the end of their technology lifecycle, necessitating replacement with next generation devices.

With these developments, IEC 61850 has been expanded to offer a one-stop utility automation framework to meet the complex challenges of operating a dynamic, distributed, intelligent, multivendor grid, both now and in the future.

What are some IEC 61850 use cases?

The first publication of IEC 61850 aimed to enable open and interoperable digital information exchanges for substation automation applications.

Today, with the expansion of the scope of IEC 61850, utilities can use it for automation between substations, for automation between substations, control centres and data centres and for a range of grid-related applications including condition monitoring diagnosis, the transmission of synchrophasor information, power quality and distribution automation.

These are significant developments for power utilities. For example, distribution automation in the feeder domain of distribution grids with the automation of monitoring, protection, and restoration to improve reliability, safety and efficiency at the distribution level.

Similarly, synchrophasor data opens the way to optimizing line capacities and efficiencies and facilitating integration with distributed energy resources.

As an example of such a use case, Dominique Verhulst, Global Energy Practice Leader at Nokia, cites a fire mitigation initiative by a US utility that draws synchrophasor data from several points on the distribution network, which is aggregated and analyzed to recognize breaking conductors and from where a goose message can be sent to the appropriate line switches to de-energize the line “before it hits the ground”, mitigating the risk of fires.

Such new use cases rely on the latest high bandwidth, low latency networks, which also offer the opportunity to implement a true multi-vendor environment.

“With the standardizations in these protocols it opens up the opportunity for utilities to step closer to multivendor interoperability for protection and control systems,” he says.

What are the steps to implementing IEC 61850?

Turning to the practicalities and technicalities of an IEC 61850 implementation, Hansen Chan, Product Marketing Manager for Digital Industries at Nokia, advises that the starting point for a utility is to evaluate the status of its communications infrastructure.

Some issues to consider include the right connectivity to support applications – such as distribution automation – that are both bandwidth intensive and latency sensitive, whether in the substation domain or in the wide area network and down to the last mile to smart meters in the feeder domains.

“With software playing a more and more dominant role in grid operation, communication reliability is key as without connectivity there is no visibility. Then the grid control system just would not function.”

Chan mentions that another key consideration is the “human layer” at the organizational level.

“Implementing IEC 61850 is a multi-disciplinary effort, so you need everyone to be on the same page and to work together towards a single vision. There are different teams that need to be involved not just on the communications side but for example in IT, as new software such as ADMS being delivered in a virtualized compute environment, the data centre network has become a critical part of the communication infrastructure foundation for IEC 61850.”

Verhulst adds that this multi-disciplinary requirement mirrors the trend in utilities of new talent hires who are familiar with these technologies at both hardware and software levels.

This will support the ongoing development of IEC 61850 with their ability to develop new solutions around it.

“Our expectation is that IEC 61850 will keep evolving towards more centralized protection and control and centralized remedial actions schemes that are relying on the more recent variants of the protocols such as the routed goose and sampled values that are becoming popular with utilities.”

What are the components of the IEC 61850 communication infrastructure?

IEC 61850 communications start from the station and process buses in substations and extend to the grid edge via the field area network (FAN) as well as to the network control centre and data center via the wide area network.

Thus, a reliable and functioning communication infrastructure is key.

Chan highlights the “service-centric approach” of Nokia, saying that it is an essential requirement of such a network foundation to support many different grid applications.

“There will be more and more applications coming for which one will need more and more network virtual segmentation and so one needs to have a communication network platform that allows them to be rolled out as required,” he says.

Chan also emphasizes the importance of incorporating broadband wireless access technology such as LTE into the service-centric network in order to deploy IEC 61850-based assets at the grid edge where fiber is not available.

Verhulst states that Nokia’s solutions are very comprehensive with radio access networks that allow individual private wireless infrastructures based on LTE or 5G to be built and are based on a “strong utility focus”, considering elements such as the backhaul requirements and the substation communication elements.

“Our implementation is an end-to-end IP/MPLS solution including a full series of substation and wireless fieldrouters, packet microwave and DWDM optical transport as well as the backbone networking infrastructure.”

He adds that cybersecurity concerns also have been considered and that secure encryption and key cycling are provided to safeguard grid communications.

What are the benefits of an IEC 61850 implementation?

Some of the stated benefits of an IEC 61850 implementation include the ability to roll out applications in a unified manner, interoperability with legacy devices and future-proofing for new technology integrations.

Verhulst says that utilities with which Nokia has worked on network implementations have seen improvements in SAIDI averaging between 30% to 50%.

Further, a JRC study on UK utilities found that they could save around £13 billion (€15.2 billion/$16.5 billion) in grid infrastructure investment with their implementation.

He also returns to the interoperability benefits, saying that Nokia sees IEC 61850 as clearly indicating the trend of utilities being able to “pick and choose” from among the vendors.

“It’s not going to be about whose hardware or software we should buy but more about who has the best to do what we need.

“And added value is going to come with the innovation from the vendors so it’s an interesting move that we will see more of ahead in the next five to ten years.”

The installations will start in the company’s southern communities and will lead to the installation of more than 260,000 of the new smart meters in the service area through 2025.

For Xcel Energy, the rollout marks the next step in the modernisation of its power grid, which so far has focussed primarily on boosting the capacity and reliability of the system through new and improved lines and substations.

With the smart meters, customers will be empowered to manage their energy use better while improving reliability and helping Xcel Energy restore power more quickly after an outage.

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“We’re excited to take this next step in building a smarter, more resilient and efficient energy grid and making it easier than ever for customers to understand and manage their energy use,” said Karl Hoesly, president, of Xcel Energy – Wisconsin.

“Smart meters are the starting point for this advanced grid, boosting reliability and providing new tools and technology to help customers lower costs.”

Smart meters will give customers near real-time energy use data with access through the company’s ‘My Account app’ or online.

They also will have access to programmes and services that will help them better understand their energy usage and how to improve efficiency and find more savings.

Currently, the majority of Xcel Energy’s old meters are AMR meters.

In addition to Wisconsin, Xcel Energy has smart meter rollouts underway in its service areas in Colorado, Minnesota and Texas.

The rollouts in North Dakota, South Dakota and New Mexico are tentatively scheduled to start in 2024 and in Michigan in 2025.

Xcel Energy serves approximately 3.7 million electricity and 2.1 million natural gas customers across the eight service territories.

The implementation plan is comprised of 19 ‘priority project concepts’ (PPC) that should be delivered in the period starting in 2024 as well as a further 13 PPCs that should get underway in the following year.

These PPCs, which are categorised under the previously established ‘high-level use cases’, are considered as “families of projects”. They are not intended as specifically defined individual projects, that would be the task of project funding applicants.

The implementation plan is intended to detail the most urgent R&I needs that should to be tackled through the European Commission and national work programmes within the period towards delivering the 2050 neutral carbon energy system.

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With extensive electrification combined with significant energy efficiency improvements and CO2 reductions in all sectors, this will require inter alia the massive use of renewables and smart grids technologies as well as sector coupling of all energy carriers via storage and conversion technologies.

The PPCs for 2025+ are as follows:

HLUC 1 – Optimal cross sector integration and grid scale storage

• Integrating hydrogen and CO2-neutral gases
• Regulatory framework for cross sector integration.

HLUC 2 – Market-driven TSO-DSO-system user interactions

• Develop a digital twin of the European electricity grid
• Viable business cases through market mechanisms and incentives
• Governance for TSO, DSO and system users.

HLUC 3 – Pan European Wholesale Markets, Regional and Local Markets

• Validation of new market concepts.

HLUC 4 – Massive RES penetration into the transmission and distribution grid

• Well-functioning markets for a RES based energy system
• Policies and governance for a RES based energy system.

HLUC 5 – One stop shop and digital technologies for market participation of consumers (citizens) at the centre

• Data spaces
• Building skills needed for developers and users of the energy system to accelerate its transition through its digitalisation
• Service management and operations
• Sharing IT infrastructure investments.

HLUC 7 – Enhance system supervision and control including cybersecurity

• Grid operator of the future
• Grid field workforce of the future
• Human machine interface
• Cybersecurity of energy networks.

HLUC 8 – Transportation integration and storage

• Integrated planning of energy and transport sectors
• Adapting policy and market for seamless cost-effective merging of transport and energy sectors.

The implementation plan gives a description of each of the priority project concepts and their budgetary requirements.

Three further R&I Implementation plans are planned to cover all the time periods until 2030.

The two new centres are a Renewable Energy Forecast Centre and a Demand Response Control Centre, both situated within EGAT’s headquarters in Nonthaburi, close to Bangkok.

They also are intended as prototypes for regional centres at the five regional grid control centres, while a further eleven renewable energy forecast centres are being planned at EGAT substations in areas with potential for renewable energy development.

“The centres will support the additional 8,000MW renewable energy integrated into the generation mix as well as renewable energy power plants of very small power producers, which may impact the control and stability of the country’s power system,” commented Kitti Petchsantad, Deputy Governor – Transmission System at EGAT.

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The implementation of the centres forms two key pillars of Thailand’s smart grid development in the period 2022-2031.

The Renewable Energy Forecast Centre is directed at predicting electricity generation from renewable and clean energy, including wind and solar energy operated by small power producers.

The forecasts are then incorporated with the plan for electricity generation of other fuel-based power plants to ensure that the power system can handle fluctuations and uncertainties of electricity generated from renewable energy.

The Demand Response Control Centre serves as the control centre for reducing electricity consumption via a load aggregator, which manages the demand response of large power users.

Currently, the Centre is being operated in the pilot phase with a reduced load of 50MW and with the Metropolitan Electricity Authority and the Provincial Electricity Authority serving as the load aggregators.

In the future when the load aggregator role is open to private agencies, the new energy business will emerge with all aggregators operating under the Centre.

In other activities in Thailand, EGAT has opened in Mae Hong Son Province, where a smart grid pilot is underway, a new public centre to enable locals and visitors to learn more about the energy system and smart grids.

The pilot has included the implementation of a grid-connected solar PV and battery energy storage system among other technologies.

The Powerledger Chain is the third generation blockchain from the company, which was one of the pioneers of the technology in the energy sector, and is designed to facilitate the development of scalable decentralised apps that are able to handle thousands of transactions per second at low cost.

Example challenges highlighted include intermittency from solar and wind and grid congestion.

“Today is the most significant day in our blockchain journey as we make our game-changer Powerledger Chain public as it offers scalability, security, and energy efficiency,” said Powerledger technical director and co-founder, John Bulich.

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“It’s the ideal platform for developing green and affordable energy solutions that pave the way to a brighter future.”

The Powerledger Chain is a customised permissioned Solana blockchain utilising proof-of-history and proof-of-stake consensus mechanisms to deliver the required throughput with lower energy requirements compared with proof-of-work blockchains.

Powerledger has developed a range of solutions in the areas of energy trading and traceability, flexibility trading and environmental commodities training.

These are at various stages of implementation in a dozen countries including Australia, India, the US and within Europe and Asia.

Another issue Powerledger highlights is that of centralisation, with the growing distributed energy system challenging the traditional centralised approach.

With decentralisation at its core, the public blockchain’s role in energy does not necessarily dismiss centralisation, but offers the importance of a balanced approach with the power of highly scalable blockchain-based solutions, the company states.

“The responsibility for grid management can be negotiated among stakeholders using a decentralised paradigm that uses smart contracts on our new public blockchain.”

Superfast charging LFP batteries for EVs

A 10 minute charge providing a driving range of 400km and a full charge delivering 700km?

That would satisfy most EV drivers and eliminate range anxiety – and it is claimed to be coming with Chinese battery manufacturing company CATL’s new lithium iron phosphate (LFP) battery named ‘Shenxing’.

CATL reports leveraging the super-electronic network cathode technology and fully nano-crystallized LFP cathode material to create a super-electronic network, which facilitates the extraction of lithium ions and the rapid response to charging signals.

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Its latest second-generation fast ion ring technology is used to modify the properties of graphite surface, which increases intercalation channels and shortens the intercalation distance for lithium ions, creating an expressway for current conduction.

A new superconducting electrolyte formula, which effectively reduces the viscosity of the electrolyte, resulting in improved conductivity, also has been developed.

Other improvements include reduced resistance of lithium-ion movement, while cell temperature control technology ensures that cells heat up to the optimal operating temperature range rapidly, allowing a 0-80% charge in just 30 minutes in temperature as low as -10°C.

CATL anticipates that mass production of Shenxing will be achieved before year-end and the first vehicles with the battery will be available on the market in the first quarter of next year.

Improving Bitcoin mining efficiency

With Bitcoin mining notoriously energy intensive and miners rushing to adopt greener and more sustainable operations, another alternative, which is being pursued by the London-based Quantum Blockchain Technologies, is to improve the efficiency of the mining itself and thus in turn its energy consumption.

The company’s ‘Method A’, unlike the standard approach of running as many hashes as possible within the available period, decides at the beginning of each block hashing whether to hash using a traditional search or a spaced confined search, with testing demonstrating an approximately 10% in mining speed.

But its ‘Method B’, for which a patent application was recently filed, is even more efficient, based on partial pre-computation on upcoming blocks prior to the current one being closed and guiding the search by deciding where the most promising winning hashes are likely to be found.

With this approach, the number of logic gates on the chip is reduced and the processing of a large number of hashes is avoided to obtain the results in less time.

In this case, there should be a 2.6x improvement in the ability to find a winning hash, compared to standard search, while saving up to 4.3% of energy.

However, its implementation requires a new architecture and the design of a new mining chip.

Setting sail with ‘Windwings’

Mitsubishi Corporation’s ‘Pyxis Ocean’, a 229m long bulk carrier vessel on charter to the global food giant Cargill, has become the first to be fitted with a novel wind propulsion system that could be key for the decarbonisation of shipping.

The two ‘Windwings’, which were designed by BAR Technologies in the EU Horizon 2020 supported initiative, are large wing sails measuring up to 37,5m in height with a 10m wide central component and front and rear 5m wide flaps that can be fitted to the deck of cargo ships, both new and as a retrofit, to harness the power of the wind.

The windwings can rotate and also pivot, right down to deck level, to allow for the differing wind angles and speeds.

With this wind assist, the windwings are expected to deliver average fuel savings of up to 30%.

The ‘Pyxis Ocean’ is currently on its maiden voyage with the windwings from Shanghai, where they were fitted, to Paranagua in Brazil with their performance being closely monitored to further improve their design and operation.

Hundreds of wings are planned to be built over the next few years and BAR Technologies is also researching new builds with improved hydrodynamic hull forms.

The solution, believed to be the first to use Amazon Sidewalk for data communication, is comprised of the Subeca ‘Pin’ as a Bluetooth meter register to replace the standard register on the water meter.

Once commissioned, the utility is then able to utilise the Amazon Sidewalk communications network, with the free communications benefit that it offers.

“This is a very inexpensive way for a utility to start building out an AMI platform,” says Patrick Keaney, CEO of Subeca.

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Subeca’s Pin is claimed to work with the majority of existing water meters and that it can be retrofitted in less than a minute.

To get the product out on the market the company has launched an ‘Explorer kit’ comprised of three Pins and the use of its Engage data platform for one year, available to 100 utilities.

Amazon Sidewalk is a long-range, low-bandwidth, low-power community wireless network for IoT that is enabled on Amazon Echo and certain other devices.

It is based on Bluetooth low energy and 900MHz LoRa and is believed to potentially provide coverage to over 90% of the population in the US – its only country of availability so far.

Subeca’s Pin includes the Bluetooth meter register as the core data collection component and the Bluetooth low energy and LoRa modules.

The company’s product offering also includes the ‘Act’, a Bluetooth wireless ball valve that will open, restrict or close upon command from a Bluetooth-capable mobile device or through the company’s Link data collection device.

Subeca has previously developed a LoRaWAN solution with a Pin featuring AWS IoT Core for low-cost communication.

Keaney, who has been CEO of Subeca since May, is the former worldwide head of development at AWS Water, with a focus on the development of IoT and cloud services in the water sector.

Nanotechnology, generally regarded as technologies at the atomic and molecular scales of size less than 100nm (1nm corresponding to a billionth of a metre), is a fast-growing area with the potential to impact many areas of activity.

One such is energy storage in which nanoscale innovations have already led to improvements, including the creation of advanced batteries with higher energy density and faster charging.

For example, California-based Sila Nanotechnologies has developed nanotechnology-based lithium-ion batteries with up to 20% capacity enhancement with the potential that can offer, for example to the improved range of electric vehicles or for use of wearable devices.

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Likewise nanotechnology has also boosted solar cell efficiency by incorporating nanoscale structures like quantum dots and perovskite materials, the white paper points out – the technology also gives rise to hybrid solar cells that both generate and store energy simultaneously.

Nanoscale supercapacitors offer high power density and rapid energy discharge, ideal for energy storage applications.

Quoting a projected market size for energy storage and conversion of $17 billion by 2028, the white paper states that despite the existing hurdles, the market is on a growth trajectory.

Investments and startups that revolve around nanotechnology for energy storage and conversion, in addition to prominent academic institutions like the US Department of Energy (DOE), Japan Science and Technology Agency (JST) and universities worldwide, understand the importance of crafting new materials for sustainable energy applications.

Nanomaterials possess the potential to greatly enhance ion transportation and electron conductivity, which could be the solution to advancing this field.

The white paper notes, however, some barriers to entry in the field. Among these are the exorbitant expenditure for research and development and a lengthy development process, while also there are regulatory obstacles that can complicate market penetration.

The white paper concludes that with continuous research and collaboration, nanotechnology will persist in driving innovation and serve as an essential tool for pioneers in the field of energy storage and conversion, empowering them to break new ground in sustainable energy.

The first phase of the rollout was focussed on the southwest region of Paraná state in Brazil’s southeast, while the second started in the metropolitan region of the capital, Curitiba.

The smart meter and smart grid programme was launched in 2021, following a 5,000 smart meter pilot introduced in 2018 in the southern state municipality of Ipiranga.

The programme is expected to see the introduction of around 4.5 million smart meters in total.

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In the first three phases, the entire southern region of the state will be supplied with smart meters, approximately 1.5 million by 2025, with a budget of the order of R$820 million (US$169 million).

Daniel Pimentel Slaviero, President of Copel, says the goal is to apply the technology to improve the efficiency of service to customers.

“Paraná has once again come out ahead, and today we have the most advanced smart grid programme in Brazil,” he asserts.

“It is the best in solutions for the power distribution system.”

Benefits provided by the smart meters include a reduction in the time to locate and fix breakdowns, remote meter reading and connections, the availability of meter data to customers via a smartphone app and digital billing, in addition to a reduction in carbon emissions due to improved efficiencies of field workers.

For example, the company estimates the avoidance of 75t of CO2 emissions in the first half of the year due to the latter.

The latest municipality in which the rollout is being introduced is Ponta Grossa, which is among the largest in the state and considered among the more challenging due to the geography of the city and the characteristics of the local power grid, according to Copel.

Approximately 800 units per day are expected to be installed there.

The human factor, when it comes to the use of distributed generation such as rooftop solar and its delivery to the grid is one of the biggest challenges when it comes to the modern grid.

Zhao, who directs Mines’ Smart Grid and Energy Research Lab, intends to study this human factor and this in turn could be incorporated so that the grid could predict how it will then be used by the humans.

Zhao says that while there is a great deal of effort underway right now to build the technology and infrastructure needed to run smart grids, the one thing missing from current research is the human factor.

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“The most important part of the equation is people, and we are trying to understand human behaviour to help build the most robust and fully functional smart grid models.”

The grant from the National Science Foundation is worth almost $200,000 over the next two years.

Specifically the intention is to introduce a data-driven approach to analyse and explicitly model power demand behaviour at the household level using real-world long-term data.

The goal is to reveal macro- and micro-residential power demand patterns, through matching 15-minute resolution smart meter data with consumer surveys, along with local parcel data and meteorological data, to achieve a comprehensive understanding of residential power demand behaviour at a disaggregated level.

This should then lay the foundation for research focused on data-driven analysis and modelling for next-generation power grids.

The primary contribution of the project is intended to be the development of a data-driven temperature-time-day-based model for residential power demand behaviour, relying solely on real-world data.

Zhao anticipates that the research also should have wider impacts, with the proposed model potentially readily expanded to other domains such as water usage.

It also should contribute to better understanding incentive effectiveness in changing consumer behaviour, particularly in green consumption.

Alongside the project a new ‘Smart Grid and Data Science’ curriculum will be developed, combining power engineering and social science.

Partners in the project include the local coop West River Electric Association and the chamber of commerce Elevate Rapid City.

Smoke impact on solar PV

The new project comes as Zhao has just completed another study on the impact of wildfire smoke on solar PV.

While solar energy production is likely to be impacted by low-level smoke, the project found that the output of individual solar panels can be reduced by nearly 50%, even when the smoke is present at high altitudes and air quality near the ground is not significantly impacted.

Moreover, the fluctuations vary with the intensity of the smoke, which often varies, indicating the importance of taking this into account as solar becomes more widespread in wildfire-prone areas and beyond given the propensity for the smoke to potentially travel large distances in the air.

The company, which supplies water to almost 7 million people mainly in the east of England, launched the programme in December 2022. Based on two complete scans of its service area has reported saving over 2Ml/d – enough to supply 8,000 homes in the region.

Chris Utton, Leakage Intensive Delivery Manager for Anglian Water, says that as much of the company’s region is rural, the satellites are particularly helping to detect any leaks in these areas where traditional monitoring is much more difficult.

“Over the last 30 years, we’ve reduced leaks in our network by 38%, despite putting a third more water into supply to meet the increasing demand of our rapidly growing customer base,” he says.

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“We know we must go even further as it’s one of the most important things to our customers and the wider environment. Gone are all the low-hanging fruits and quick wins, we’re now into the realms of tracking down really hard-to-find leaks, long before they’re visible to the naked eye, to fix them quicker and save as much precious water as possible.”

Anglian Water is working with water solution company SUEZ and California-based earth observation data provider Asterra – the only service in the world to use L-Band synthetic aperture radar (SAR) with patented technology and analysis to find leaks from the satellite images.

The satellites work by sending a pulse down from space and measuring interaction with materials on the Earth as backscatter, in this case the signature of drinking water below the Earth’s surface, which may suggest a hidden leak in the water network.

The satellite imagery is expected to form a regular component in Anglian Water’s leak detection armoury but ultimately it is only one of them, with others including thermal imaging drones and naval hydrophone equipment.

Anglian Water was also recently allocated funding to expand its smart meter rollout as part of its leak reduction plans.

Since the first smart meters were installed in 2020, the company has reported helping customers find and resolve more than 100,000 leaks at their properties.

The smart metering system is under development by energy companies E.ON and Netze BW, technology suppliers Robotron Datenbank-Software and Power Plus Communications and manufacturer Landis+Gyr.

The companies have announced that the system is based on the integration of an RLM meter to a smart meter gateway with testing having proven its marketability and timely availability.

The large consumption points in Germany account for about three-quarters of the energy consumed in the country, although in number they amount to only around 1% of the total 53 million metering points, i.e. about 530,000.

Under the Digitisation Act, at least 20% of the load profile measurement points in Germany must be equipped with smart metering by 2028.

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“With this technical solution, we are taking a further step towards digitising the RLM measuring points with smart meter gateways,” commented Jürgen Kramny, Head of Metering Systems at Netze BW.

Malte Sunderkötter, Managing Director of E.ON Grid Solutions with responsibility for the smart meter rollout in the E.ON group, said the solution has the potential to become a new industry standard.

“To this end, we are building on broad acceptance among customers, users and manufacturers.”

Specifically, the solution is based on the connection of a Landis+Gyr RLM meter to Robotron’s back-end system via the controllable local systems (CLS) interface of Power Plus Communications’ smart meter gateway.

The solution fulfils all the specific RLM use cases and also makes the metered values available for subsequent billing with storage in the meter – key in the event of a temporary interruption of the communication link to the meter, given the high levels of energy involved.

In addition, the local interfaces of the meter can be used for specific industry use cases, thus taking into account the different requirements of customers in this market segment, the companies have reported.

The solution is available in a test environment and the intent is to further optimise it as it evolves.