Introduction: This project is a combination of strategic projects being carried out largely by university groups as part of major strategic collaborations. Projects are supported under EU funding, Electricity Supply Research (ESR) network funding and Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) funding in conjunction with contributions from international utilities. The projects focus on understanding the potential of techniques or technologies to impact the electricity Transmission network.

Objectives: The project will look at the following areas:

Electricity Supply Network: Projects areas currently being monitored by National Grid through the network include Knowledge Discovery from On-line Cable Condition Monitoring Systems – Insulation Degradation and Aging Diagnostics (Glasgow Caledonian University and the University of Strathclyde), Energy Efficient Cities (University of Cambridge), Development of Transformer and Fault Current Limiter for High Power DC Networks (University of Aberdeen) and Energy Loss Study for AC Excited Superconducting Coils (University of Cambridge).

Forecasting Average Circuit Reliability: One of the key metrics for understanding network unreliability is the Average Circuit Unreliability. It has been reported as in internal KPI for many years and is also fundamental to the annual Regulatory Reporting Pack submission. It describes % network unavailability as a result of asset unreliability (outages related to faults, defects and failures etc). As part of the Network Output Measures methodology there is a requirement to forecast Average Circuit Unreliability. The present techniques are embryonic and limited to just a year’s forecast. The KTN for Industrial Mathematics, acting as an agent of EPSRC, receives an annual allocation of funding for Industrial Mathematics Internships for short projects to support postgraduate researchers working on industrial-academic collaborations in mathematics. An Internship involves a high calibre PhD student taking time off from their studies and joining a company for a period of 3 to 6 months to work on a stand-alone project specified by a company. This project is co-funded with EPSRC, who will fund 50% of the student’s stipend. The project for National Grid will involve developing a more sophisticated forecast technique for the Average Circuit Unreliability metric.

Modelling and control of AC-DC system with significant generation from Wind: In 2008 alone 2000 MW of new wind capacity was connected to the UK grid. With further 6000 MW under construction and 10,000 MW under planning stage in the first round, the UK transmission system in the next 5-10 years is going to face unprecedented operational challenges. The challenges are envisaged to be contributed by many factors such as locations, characteristics of new generation and planned retirement of more and more centralised synchronous generations. As majority of the wind uptake is going to be in North West of Scotland and demand growth will still be dominated in the down south in England, secured transfer of the energy is going to be a major problem across the Scotland- England inter connector which is already stability limited.

The Development of an Equivalent Power Network Model for HVDC Studies: To assess the performances of the DC system under various operation conditions and assess the influence of the HVDC transmission on system security and AC network performance.

Transmission Tower Field Testing and analysis: Following previous work there is an understanding of the uplift capacity of National Grid's existing transmission tower foundations under steady state and dynamic loading conditions.