Your browser does not support JavaScript or has it disabled. To enable full functionality of this site it is necessary to enable JavaScript.
  • Industry Collaboration

    Industry Collaboration

  • To meet the challenges of a changing industry it is imperative that we collaborate and share knowledge as widely as possible, with stakeholders, academics, and other DNOs and TOs.

    Below you can read about just some of our recent collaborations. If you have an idea worth sharing, please let us know

  • View some of our collaborations below

    Energy Innovation Centre (EIC)

    The EIC brings innovators and industry together. We partner with the EIC to find and progress transformative ideas from SMEs and innovators. The EIC’s specialist team will guide you through the application process, share many helpful innovator resources, and if necessary advise on the best funding options for your ideas.

    Visit the EIC’s dedicated innovator support page.

    Support is free of charge and includes access to various resources such as:

    • the ultimate guide to innovating with the energy networks

    • an interactive funding finder

    • a single industry calendar 

    Solutions can also be proposed in response to ‘Calls for Innovation’, or ideas with the potential to benefit our industry partners can be submitted any time. See the latest opportunities/Calls for Innovation here. We are also working with the EIC to remove barriers to innovation and have signed up to an Industry and Innovator Operating Charter. Get involved, share your experience of working with us or voice a concern here.


      EIC

      Energy Storage Operators Forum (ESOF)
      The Energy Storage Operators Forum (ESOF) was established in May 2012 as a forum to facilitate sharing of experiences and best practice. Chaired by EA Technology, the forum is supported by all six DNOs in Great Britain. Since its inception, ESOF has addressed aspects of practical implementation of storage systems and recently successfully bid to develop a Good Practice Guide for electrical energy storage, under the Department of Energy and Climate Change Energy Storage Component Research and Feasibility scheme.
      IET Power Networks Research Academy (PNRA)

      The IET PNRA was established through a strategic partnership agreement between the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC), electricity transmission and distribution companies, and related manufacturers and consultants. It funds and supports PhD researchers in power industry-related projects, and helps to maintain and improve the research and teaching capacity in power engineering subjects.

      A range of projects are addressed in this programme, including:

      • Overhead lines measurement system
      • Application of artificial immune system algorithm to distribution networks
      • Protection issues of inverter-interfaced DG
      • Chemical approaches towards intelligent insulation
      • Electrical network fault level measurement for DG and other applications
      • Reactive power dispatch using DG
      • Influence of oil contamination on the electrical performance of power transformers
      • Alternatives to SF6 as an insulation medium for distribution equipment
      • Solid state devices for electrical power distribution

      Industry partners, the IET, and academia have all agreed that the projects are beneficial to both the DNOs through potential breakthroughs that could lead to new practices or products and to academia by raising the profile of power engineering.

      Power Networks Demonstration Centre (PNDC)
      We have collaborated with the University of Strathclyde and Scottish Power Energy Networks to establish the Power Networks Demonstration Centre (PNDC), with support from Scottish Enterprise and the Scottish Funding Council. This research, demonstration and testing facility is the first of its kind in the UK, comprising low-voltage laboratories and a realistic, controllable and fully operational distribution network. We believe the pooling of financial and human resources at the PNDC will facilitate the demonstration and deployment of many innovative solutions at a faster rate than could be achieved by any single institution.
      SUPERGEN

      We are an industrial partner in the SUPERGEN-funded HubNet consortium, which also includes eight universities and has the objective of coordinating research in energy networks in the UK. We were also an industrial partner in the previous SUPERGEN-funded asset management and performance of energy systems (AMPerES) project which involved six UK universities. AMPerES ended in 2010 but provides an early and effective example of our participation in multi-party academic collaborations.

      The subsequent SUPERGEN-funded flexible network technologies (FlexNet) project, which ended in 2011, is a similar example of a major collaborative project which we participated in and which involved universities, network operators, and equipment manufacturers.
      University of Strathclyde Endowed Fellowship
      We believe that effective engagement and working collaboratively with a range of academic institutions can both help to inform our overall programme of activities, and tackle specific challenges and opportunities so that we accelerate the rate of learning from our portfolio of research and development projects. This fellowship focuses on the themes of LV network analysis and DNO-demand side management. The main achievements to date are: a literature review on LV analysis, distribution load flow, stochastic load flow, and the impact of low carbon technologies on the LV network; development of MATLAB planning tools; the simulation of load data using various case study profiles; a paper published on “The Uncertainties of Probabilistic LV Network Analysis”