The CLASS project will show how a DNO could use innovative voltage management to provide new demand response and utilise it to provide added value for customers. At the heart of CLASS is the natural relationship between voltage and customer demand.

CLASS will demonstrate how this relationship can be used in a low cost, rapidly deployable Solution that can provide a range of demand response capabilities and network voltage regulation services. The trials will demonstrate that the Solution can be applied to reduce peak network demands and to provide a low cost means of voltage management on networks with high volumes of Distributed Generation (DG). In addition at GB level it provides a new mechanism for frequency management and voltage control to support the system operator. CLASS is highly transferable and can be readily implemented by all DNOs.

Objectives

As GB moves to a low carbon future, electricity demand and the level of renewable and low carbon generation is expected to increase significantly. This decarbonisation pathway will introduce a number of key challenges for the operators of GB electricity networks with the potential to necessitate expensive capital investments.

CLASS is a highly innovative, easily implemented and low cost solution which enables DNOs to deliver significant savings to customers using existing assets to address the above issues. Specifically CLASS will help DNOs to:

• Enable customer low carbon technology connections, whilst managing peak loads on the network and timing DNO's eventual interventions efficiently

• Provide a solution to network voltage control problems on the entire GB network

• Assist in reducing the requirement to constrain off low carbon generators for network balancing

• Provide a low cost and effective system stability response facility.