Sharing our smart grid strategy

We said we would run a focused briefing session for stakeholders on our innovation strategy.

“I would like a better understanding/ links to NPg’s innovation strategy. Growth will come from deployment of new technologies like storage and DSR. Would be interested in collaborating with NPg on this.” 
Patrick Smart, RES. 

At the meeting of our Stakeholder Engagement Panel in January 2016 we discussed our 2016/17 ICE work plan proposal and asked the members for feedback and further ideas. During this session, Patrick Smart of RES told us he would like to know more about our innovation strategy, particularly regarding energy storage and demand-side response.

Acting on this feedback, we committed to running a focused stakeholder session on our innovation strategy, incorporating storage, demand side response and ANM.  A session was held at our Connections Customer Forum in May 2016. In total, 43 customers from 27 companies attended and our Head of Trading and Innovation, Jim Cardwell, presented our innovation strategy, discussing the drivers for innovation, our smart grid development plans and how it was relevant for our stakeholders.

Following the event, we sent an email to all delegates with a link to the slides presented and posted the information on our website here.

Building on our commitment we have continued to engage with stakeholders and communicate our innovation strategy throughout the course of year and in October 2016, we presented our innovation portfolio of projects at the Low Carbon Network (LCN) Conference in Manchester. We delivered two events, together with the ENA, Regen SW, Community Energy England and other DNOs, looking at how network operators can work better with community energy groups to deliver innovative projects; the outputs of which was a new energy guide for stakeholders. At our Autumn Connections Customer Forum in November 2016, we gave another innovation briefing and in March 2017, we ran a workshop on connecting innovative technologies where Mark Nicholson, Head of Smart Grid Implementation, set out our smart grid evolution and deployment plans. Furthermore, we have added a new theme and actions to this year’s ICE plan that recognise the importance we and our customers place on innovation.

• Slides from our focused stakeholder session on innovation, May 2016
• Update from our Connections Customer Forum, November 2016
• Update from our connecting innovative technologies workshop, March 2017