Smart Hooky
| Duration | Feb 2012 - Oct 2013 |
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| Region |
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Project description
Western Power Distribution worked with a number of partners to trial a range of new technologies to create one of the UK’s first community-scale ‘smart grids’, through the Smart Hooky Project.
Building on the successful Low Carbon Communities Challenge, this trial aimed to help WPD understand how a rural community uses electricity at different times of the day and find out how electricity networks could accommodate more low-carbon technology.
The project also looked at delivering the following:
- Customer engagement and incentive programme;
- Community data measurement and display capabilities;
- At-scale Power Line Communications (PLC) demonstration;
- High Voltage (HV)/Low Voltage (LV) substation monitoring technologies; and
- a miniature smart grid telecommunications network using two or more technologies.
Smart Hooky also allowed homeowners to understand the impact of their own behaviour on their energy consumption and on the environment, as well as helping the government meet its target of reducing carbon emissions by 80% by 2050.
Hook Norton is a dynamic rural community in Oxfordshire with around 2,500 residents and 800 properties. Previously the village was awarded £400,000 from Department of Energy and Climate Change's (DECC) Low Carbon Communities Challenge programme to help its residents ‘decarbonise’. Thanks to the Hook Norton Low Carbon group and the limited company which they have set up, the money has been spent on a variety of different projects which, over time, will return money back into the community.
Knowledge sharing event - 27 February 2013
Western Power Distribution and partners from the National Energy Foundation and AND Technology presented to a number of industry colleagues at the Hook Norton Brewer Visitors Centre. This was an opportunity to share learning from the project so far, and demonstrate the technology employed, including Power Line Carrier (PLC) communications and substation monitoring. Workshops were also held to discuss industry stakeholder engagement, the energy website and how this data will be used to serve the residents of the village.