Introduction: Scottish Power has been a partner in an Innovation Funding Incentive / Technology Strategy Board funded R & D project with the University of Durham, Areva, Imass and Parsons Brinckerhoff to design and install at real-time thermal ratings system for overhead lines, cables and power transformers on a test network in North Wales. The field trial data is being collected and analysed and the R&D phase of the project has now come to an end.

Renewable generation is often located in rural locations where there is little spare capacity of the distribution networks. This project aims to unlock extra capacity in the networks thus reducing reinforcement requirements and connection costs for wind generators.

The scope of this project is to implement a dynamic real-time thermal rating system for overhead lines that gives the control room operators greater visibility of the actual thermal operating status of their network.

Objectives: The objective is to deliver the first active distribution network based implementation of this technology across a wide area of the network. The implementation will involve the installation of meteorological stations and monitoring equipment, the data from which will be processed to display real-time thermal ratings and conductor operating temperatures on a graphical user interface within the distribution network control room.

Through open-loop analysis of the dynamic thermal rating system, and confidence-building in the technology adoption, the system will then feed into an active network management project, which will facilitate and manage the connection of the wind farms on congested networks.