Introduction: This R&D Project is to pilot the installation of a Voltage Optimiser at Rayleigh substation. This is to evaluate the claimed benefits of energy savings on electricity consumption by reducing the incoming LVAC supply voltage by a fixed amount into the site LVAC board. There are also additional benefits which are due the reduced heating and insulation stresses on the substation connected equipment, which should improve asset life and reliability.

Objectives:

The project objectives are below:

To investigate the effects of voltage change on the substation equipment

To investigate how a voltage decrease can impact on energy bills

To investigate the two different arrangements of the EMS Powerstar hardware

Expected Benefits: This project will be successful if we trial the voltage optimiser equipment, and either understand why it is not suitable for installation, or decrease the energy bills for the substation and ensure the hardware is reliable in a high voltage environment.