Issue link: https://read.utilityweek.co.uk/i/665572
NETWORK / 9 / APRIL 2016 Philip New, chief executive of the Energy Systems Catapult, is clear that cross-vector solutions are not an energy system 'nice to have'. The notable appointment of Jonathan Brearley, formerly the architect of Electricity Market Reform at the Department of Energy and Climate Change, as Ofgem's senior partner for networks certainly means the regulator now has some potent experience to affect industry change. But before any such process gets underway, says Philip New, chief executive of the Energy Systems Catapult, a concerted effort is needed to establish a consensus across stakeholders about which elements of whole system transformation have to be addressed first. The IET would add that its approach to defining a system architecture for the future power system – which sets out the technical functions that the system would have to perform – could provide a sound basis for achieving that consensus, if it were stretched to consider multi-vector rather than power-specific scenarios. For example, its use of SGAM modelling, which originated in the telecoms sector, could be used to make sense of all the interconnected energy system integration challenges from a number of perspectives – technical, commercial, regulatory and more. Other interested parties, such as the Energy Technologies Institute (ETI) and the Association for Decentralised Energy (ADE), are developing their own contributions to the systems integration canon. ETI is in the process of contracting a lead partner for a £300,000 project to understand the opportunities for multi- vector integration – more news is expected in June. The ADE's approach, meanwhile, centres on enabling a bigger role for district heating in the future energy system. Soon, it hopes to be able to set out a timeline and milestones for improving engineering and industry standards in this nascent sector, as well as building customer protection codes. Most importantly, it aims to improve understanding in parallel parts of the energy system about what the growth of district heating would mean for them and how they could interact with it to mutual, consumer and whole-system advantage. Chief executive Tim Rotheray says it's critical that other energy networks – especially gas networks – do not see district heating as a threat, but this sentiment reveals a core problem with the multi-vector vision – fear of the unknown. With so many questions about how to orchestrate a move towards system integration, industry leaders find it difficult to visualise the role they would be expected to play in a multi-vector system, how dominant that role would be or how it might affect the value of their infrastructure assets in the eyes of investors. IntegratIon ImperatIve: "One of our primary beliefs is that for UK energy to be transformed, and policy aims met within the constraints of the trilemma, it will require genuine whole-system innovation that goes way beyond the technical. It's behavioural, its institutional, it's about markets and structures." "It's not about picking winners but it is about being able to synthesise all of the information from our architectures and modelling so that it can inform debates around business models." "A lot of credible work has been done which suggests that a way of responding to this challenge is to have a stronger sense of the architecture of the system – that feels sensible. Whether or not it is then appropriate to have an architect is a very different question and speaks to a whole different set of considerations." "It would be wonderful to be able to broaden FPSA so that it began to reflect something that is genuinely cross-vector as well as to deepen it so that we start to get great technical specificity. Its utility will expand as a consequence of it becoming both cross vector and more granular." "For any one vertical or vector to believe that it can provide a self-standing response to the energy trilemma almost seems to be self-evidently questionable because of the significant interaction of energy use that we see today – and that will increase." "A risk is that we collectively fail to align sufficiently around the transitions that are required – that inertia plays out and we get to a time when the cost and the disruption and the complexity of making change become so great that either we duck it or we find ourselves with a much greater challenge than we have today." →