The OpenLV project held a participant workshop event on 4th June in Bristol, hosted by EA Technology.
Three of the seven community groups taking part in the OpenLV project attended, including recently recruited Yealm Community Energy, along with seven of the businesses/academic participants. OpenLV project partners and suppliers also attended the event including Regen, Centre for Sustainable Energy, NCC and Lucy Electric GridKey.
The purpose of the workshop was to give organisations who have engaged with the OpenLV project a platform to share their project’s progress and findings with each other, highlighting any future opportunities. All of the workshop attendees have commended the event for being a great opportunity to share their experiences and the learning generated through the OpenLV project and to also get an update on the overall progress of the project.
Paul Beck, Director Smart Grids for Lucy Electric GridKey, one of the OpenLV project partner companies, attended the meeting and commented “I was both surprised and delighted by the diversity of ideas being pursued by the community groups, industry and academia as to how to get value from the substation data being made available and as a result we are already in discussions with some of these groups on how to further develop these ideas.”
The key parts of the workshop included participant presentations and a poster session, where the organisations were encouraged to share detail of the projects they have undertaken, why they chose to get involved in OpenLV and what they have learned as a result of their projects.
Many participants were keen to present at the workshop including community group Owen Square Community Energy and businesses such as Upside Energy, Orxagrid, Equiwatt and Egnida.
Orxagrid have developed a Voltage Violation Prediction Application using data from the OpenLV project, therefore grasped the opportunity to present and share the success of their project. The app could assist Distribution Network Operators to predict likely future voltage violations including sags (not enough voltage) and swells (too much voltage).
Academic participants also presented at the workshop, such as University of Strathclyde who shared details of their research project, which uses real-time OpenLV data to review distribution network loading characteristics. University of Strathclyde discussed their key learning so far which includes on the impact of phase imbalance, load diversity and weather on Low Voltage loads.
The OpenLV project is funded by Ofgem through the Network Innovation Competition (NIC). It is a ground-breaking project that is making electricity data openly available using an innovative open software platform.
Western Power Distribution – Western Power Distribution is the company responsible for electricity distribution in the Midlands, South West and Wales, serving 7.9 million customers. WPD is funding the project and is the principal project partner. The project is taking place in its licence areas.
EA Technology – EA Technology is an employee-owned organisation offering high-tech instruments, software, electrical services and technical consultancy to the operators of power networks around the world. EA Technology is a project partner and is managing the project.
CSE – CSE is an independent national charity which promotes energy sustainability. CSE was responsible for the recruitment and screening of community organisations who wanted to participate in the project. CSE is now mentoring and advising the seven community groups who are participating in OpenLV and developing the web app for the groups to use.
Regen – Regen is an independent not-for-profit organisation that uses its expertise to work with industry, communities and the public sector to revolutionise the way we generate, supply and use energy. Regen is providing cost benefit analysis of the community activities enabled by the OpenLV project. Find out more about the OpenLV projects
