The issues with the UK electricity network

The electricity supply network in the UK, the 'National Grid', has been designed to deliver power from large fossil-fuelled (oil, coal and gas) and nuclear power plants, down through progressively lower voltage levels to a suitable level for use by business and domestic users.  

Now and in the future, to meet Government Energy White Paper targets, greater amounts of electricity are being generated by renewable sources. These sources, even larger windfarms, have typically much smaller outputs than conventional power plants. Therefore electricity supply from renewables will involve a greater number of smaller-sized generation sources, which will need to upload their generation onto the grid for transmission to end users at a suitable voltage level. This is known as distributed or embedded generation. This will need changes to be made to the transmission and distribution network structures to accommodate smaller scale generation from a large number of generation sources and technologies.

The connection of these renewable energy generators is not straightforward but there is a great deal of work ongoing in the UK to modify the Electricity Distribution and Transmission networks to accommodate the increased amount of embedded generation required to meet Governments targets. The DTI co-ordinates activity in this area through two sub groups: the Transmission Committee (formally the Transmissions Issues Working Group or TIWG) and the Distribution Committee (formally the Distribution Generation Coordinating Group).

Network Issues in the North East

The North East is progressing plans set out in the North East Regional Renewable Strategy to develop renewable sources to provide 10% of the electricity consumed in the region. This generation will need to be integrated into the national grid to be useable. In many or even most instances, this generation will require new grid connections to be set up to allow the generated power to be transmitted to its point of use. The techical aspects of doing this, and of controlling the flow into the grid so that transmission is even and within the capacity load of the transmission system requires expert knowledge. Network issues in the North East are covered by the Networks subgroup of NEREG. This small group of experts includes the electricity distribution company for the North East, Yorkshire and Humberside, CE-Electric, researchers into network and electricity distribution and transmission, such as the New and Renewable Energy Centre (NaREC) and Econnect, and the public sector organisations covering the energy agenda. This group is led by Dave Miller of CE-Electric as the Chair and technical feed into NEREG.

Apart from the vast knowledge and experience in the region, there are also extensive research facilities in the region, for instance at NAREC, which operates the EnergyLINK Laboratory, which is a custom built facility for carrying out research and development utilising test facilities which have been designed to address the specific issues associated with generators interacting with networks.  The Laboratory is able to emulate grid conditions, including grid faults and abnormal events like frequency excursions, which can help developers prove device operation prior to implementation and connection to the grid.