The OpenLV project has been launched at Western Power Distribution’s Balancing Act Conference which took place in London on 5 October 2017.
OpenLV was the headline act at the ‘Future Networks – A Balancing Act’ event held at the Park Plaza, Westminster Bridge, organised by WPD’s Innovation division, with an audience primarily comprised of members of the DNO community and the energy industry.
Currently, electricity network operators don’t have enough information about how much spare capacity there is on local electricity networks. The OpenLV project, led by project partners Western Power Distribution and EA Technology, will, for the first time, open up data from local substations, so that Distribution Network Operators (DNOs), and third parties such as businesses and academia, will have more information about local networks.
The project is trialling an open software platform in electricity substations that can monitor substation performance and electricity demand, as well as other important power quality measurements such as voltage and temperatures.
A range of speakers presented about the project, including Mark Dale, Innovation Manager, Western Power Distribution, and Richard Potter, EA Technology’s OpenLV Project Manager. Rachel Coxcoon from CSE explained how the organisation is engaging with communities to explore how they can get involved with OpenLV. Gill Nowell from EA Technology discussed how businesses and academia can get involved, and said that over 30 organisations have already expressed an interest in the project.
The OpenLV project team is looking for ideas for new apps that can utilise such Low Voltage (LV) network data to provide benefits to Distribution Network Operators, community groups, industry, academia and, of course, customers.
Organisations or individuals with ideas for apps that could be developed as part of the OpenLV project should complete a survey to register their interest at: www.openlv.net/about/the-project/for-business-and-academia
To watch a short video that explains the OpenLV project visit: www.openlv.net/resources
For more information about OpenLV visit www.openlv.net
