Road to Power - Alpha

Project Summary

Our project addresses the critical challenges from the electrification of plant machinery in the construction industry. The Discovery Phase found the non-road mobile machinery sector alone is projected to increase NGED's electricity demand by 1.5 to 2.0 TWh in 2050, powered via temporary grid connections on construction sites. The existing manual process of requesting temporary connections will not meet the evolving needs of an electrified construction sector, with significantly increased and more complex temporary connections.

To solve this, a self-service tool for temporary connections, focusing on flexible and interruptible connections, is needed. Construction schemes are ideal for these connections having a variable but predictable load across the day and year, and where agility is preferable to reinforcement related delays. This tool will extend existing self-service connection tools, providing improved functionality with a consistent user experience.

Problem(s)

The project directly supports the Innovation Challenge aim of "Whole system network planning and utilisation to facilitate faster and cheaper network transformation and asset rollout" by maximising the ability to provide these large temporary connections with minimal reinforcement, facilitating the transition to an electrified construction industry. By enabling flexible and interruptible connections, our tool has the potential to drastically reduce the time and financial barriers associated with the network connections necessary for supporting electrified machinery, aligning perfectly with the innovation challenge theme.

Innovation Justification

The self-service temporary connection tool is crucial as it supports the construction sector's shift towards decarbonisation by managing connections more efficiently and sustainably.

Existing self-service tools across Great Britain are limited to managing fixed, permanent connections, which the Discovery Phase shows will be insufficient for the complex, temporary needs of modern construction sites. These sites require large temporary connections and are strong candidates for flexible and interruptible connections due to predictable yet varied load profiles and the transient nature of their operations. Our tool uniquely fills this gap, providing an automated solution that facilitates temporary connections with an option for flexibility and interruptible connections ---a significant advancement over the current state of the art.

The Discovery Phase provided critical insights into the deficiencies of current practices. We learned the importance of stakeholder engagement and iterative development to align technical solutions with practical field requirements. This has shaped our Alpha Phase, ensuring the tool is designed with direct input from our project partners Kier, and our industry stakeholders including Highways Authority and Utilities Committee, Keltbray, HS2 and National Highways, who have highlighted the necessity for this innovation.

The project's scale and design are tailored to meet SIF objectives by demonstrating significant innovation beyond incremental improvements. The tool assesses current capacity across the duration of the works and across half-hourly periods, offering users multiple, tailored connection options.

The tool will present end users with several options for the connections including fixed, flexible and interruptible connections.

Each connection type will include a costing, time to connection and time to restore in case of fault. The end user can then select the connection based on their risk appetite and scheme requirements. Utilising flexible and interruptible connections will drastically reduce the cost and timing for a connection due to avoided reinforcement while providing the supply resilience needed for a construction site. Automating the process and visualising the options to the end user should significantly increase the uptake of these connections. This capability represents a substantial technical leap in the automation of electrical connections for construction, promising significant time and cost savings. By the end of the Alpha Phase, we aim to advance from TRL3 to TRL6, and similarly improve integration and commercial readiness, marking a clear progression towards market viability. This will involve the development of a proof-of-concept (POC) tool, focusing on HV connections, using a single primary substation within NGED's region. The POC will demonstrate temporary, flexible and interruptible connections, presenting the user with a number of options based on their input load profile.

SIF funding is essential as the project's novel approach and the technical challenges it addresses are not suitable for conventional funding channels with in the price control or as part of business-as-usual activities. These sources typically do not support the high-risk, high-reward developments needed for such transformative innovations in the energy sector.

Alternative approaches such as minor enhancements to existing tools or continuing with manual processes were considered. However, these were dismissed because they fail to meet the rapidly evolving demands of the construction sector for flexibility and automation, particularly under the pressing imperative of decarbonisation.

In conclusion, our project represents a transformative step forward in energy network management for construction, delivering a novel tool that significantly advances the capability, efficiency, and sustainability of temporary electrical connections. Funded by the SIF, this tool will set new standards in the industry, directly contributing to the UK's decarbonisation targets and supporting the broader transition to a sustainable future.

Key outputs

The initial expected output of the project will be the user journey and specification for the software tool. This will involve multiple workshops with our project partners and stakeholders to understand their requirements and expectations of the tool.

By the end of the Alpha phase, we will provide a Proof Of Concept (POC) self-service connection tool for HV temporary connections that demonstrates the essential functions highlighted in the Discovery phase. These functions are:

1. The ability to assess a time-based load profile against available network capacity on half-hourly intervals to provide a flexible connection. This will allow the user to plan work and plant machinery charging patterns against the available network capacity.
2. The ability to assess the load profile of the connection with respect to time on a monthly or seasonal basis against the available capacity of the network. This will allow planners of works to align their work schedules to periods of lower demand.
3. The ability to provide interruptible supplies as a connection option. These will have an increased time to restore in case of a fault elsewhere in the network but should allow for significantly reduced chance of required reinforcement.

All these three options will allow for better asset utilisation, reducing the probability and cost of reinforcement to the network and hence the connection cost / timeline.

The tool needs to be able to check for all these options, and combinations of these options, and provide the user with the ability to select based on their own priorities, budget, timeline and risk appetite. This will require the tool to provide:

1. Cost for connection - What is the cost required to connect to the network, including any costs for reinforcement and active network management components.
2. Time to connection -- How long will it take for the connection to be made? It is expected that a flexible connection which doesn't require reinforcement should allow for a significant improvement in the time to connect.
3. Time to restore following unplanned outage -- How long could the site be off-supply following a network fault? It is expected that certain options presented to the user (i.e. interruptible connections) will have longer but acceptable restoration times.

As part of the proof of concept, we will demonstrate the tool working for a single primary substation with NGED's network against several example construction scheme load profiles based on real-world data provided by project partners. The proof of concept will be demonstrated and can be used by the wider stakeholder group to ensure it meets their expectations. Through stakeholder engagement sessions, we will demonstrate this POC to other interested GB DNOs. In addition to the SIF End of Phase and Show and Tell presentations, a final report demonstrating the capability and feasibility of the tool, feedback from the stakeholders, next steps and lessons learned will be produced.

These deliverables are separated into the work packages as follows:

WP1: Project Management

WP2: User Journeys and Construction works profile generation

WP3: Learning report detailing methodology and process for HV data creation

WP4: Specifications for temporary, flexible and interruptible supplies.

WP5: Wireframe and GUI development for results visualisation along with proof-of-concept demonstration