Getting smart on the Emerald Isle

Marie Shields gets the lowdown on ESB’s drive to implement intelligent technologies in pursuit of its ambitious sustainability strategy.

“Replacing petrol and diesel with electric vehicles at point of consumption is our vision for the future”

Ireland's Electricity Supply Board (ESB) launched a bold new strategy in March of 2008 to become carbon net neutral by 2035. Plans are now coming together to deliver on that strategy, including investment in renewable generation and the implementation of smart technologies to develop an intelligent grid, coupled with a drive to win the hearts and minds of all ESB staff in pursuit of the sustainability objective.

One of the key challenges is to implement a smart electricity network - indeed ESB's web site pulls no punches on this score: "Electricity networks are a vital part of our overall economic development, and are increasingly key to the delivery of EU and national sustainability targets," it declares. "To achieve those targets, radical change is needed in the design, operation and embedded intelligence of electricity networks."

This is a large undertaking, but as CIO Peter O'Shea explains, the company already had a good base from which to start. "We have invested in a number of different facilities over the years," he says. "For example, we have a significant investment in SCADA systems already. Some consider SCADA to be a precursor to a smart network, while to others it's part of it, depending upon where on the evolution of control systems an individual utility is.

"We've also made an investment in an outage management system, which together with SCADA, provides our eyes and ears on the network and what's actually happening on it. We've invested in some sensing devices on the network; so we're somewhere down the line."

O'Shea does point out that the difficulty with measuring progress in developing a smart network is the variety of definitions that exist around the concept. "It's a subjective question to an extent - you talk to 10 different people about smart networks, and you get 10 different views of what it is."

To help address this issue, ESB Networks is developing a roadmap for smart networks based on their own five ring model. Jerry O'Sullivan, Sustainability and Systems Manager in ESB Networks, explains, "The five rings model integrates renewable generation, smart networks, smart meters, connected home and distributed generation and electric vehicles into a clear strategic vision." 

O'Sullivan explains the particular national characteristics with which the strategy must deal: "Ireland has set a target for over 40 percent penetration of renewable generation, which is by its nature intermittent. Coupled with Ireland being an island system, this poses unique challenges when compared the rest of Western Europe, where there is a larger, integrated system that more closely resembles that in the US.

"Curiously, the Irish system has close on 200,000 km of transmission and distribution networks, which is almost four times the European average per capita - this is due to its dispersed population and provides its own challenges in the development of smart network strategies."

O'Shea comments that, "These issues are part of the smart network. It's all about applying IT and telecommunications intelligence to observe these complications, understand them better and to work out how the network, the system operator and the consumers will respond in these different cases."

Building blocks

According to O'Shea, one of the biggest building blocks for smart networks is smart meters. In Ireland, installing a system of smart meters means replacing mechanical meters with computerized devices for each of the country's two million electricity consumers. He describes the vision of having each of these smart meters with two communication channels: one back up to the electricity system to the system control room, and a second channel back into the home to provide information on the status of the electricity devices there.

"The overall vision is, from a system perspective, to create a real time information link between the customer, their appliances and the power stations and wind farms that generate electricity," O'Shea explains. "This link can be extended into the home, even into areas like controlling the charging of electric vehicles.

"The information coming through the smart meter will empower the customer through giving them a full understanding of how they're consuming electricity, and enable them to better control the energy consumption of their appliances, using information broadcast from the smart meter into the home. The meter will also have to interact with electric vehicles."

The project relies on the successful joining of the competencies in metrology, network operational technology with IT and telecommunications technologies. While all major EU countries are considering these issues, Ireland and ESB would appear to be further ahead than most. "Under the auspices of the industry regulator CER, we are part-way through a smart meter pilot program," says O'Shea. "We have installed around 9000 meters nationwide in the last nine months."

There are actually two trials running - one on the technology, to test the meter itself and the various currently available communication technologies to bring the information back from the meter. "In addition around 6000 consumers with smart meters are part of what we call the customer behavior trials," he says. "We've chosen them using random statistical selection across the country. The people who have those meters will be offered different financial incentives during 2010, and the trial will then look to measure whether their behavior changes on the back of the financial incentives."

ESB expects the trial to show which incentives are better, and also whether giving incentives changes behavior to an extent that the benefits can be quantified either by a reduction in carbon output through lower demand, or by reducing overall operating costs for the electricity system because you've shifted demand from one period to another.

The trial should allow full quantification of the financial benefits of a full smart metering scheme. "One of the key characteristics of the pilot is the involvement of the many stakeholders in it under the leadership of national government and CER, which augurs well for its success," O'Shea underlines.

ESB, however, does not underestimate the challenge it faces in rolling out a state-of-the-art smart metering solution for all its customers in what is still an immature technology, where standards have yet to be developed. Significant challenges also exist around the communications infrastructure, given the population distribution in Ireland.

Building on the good work done to date in the pilots will be key. One of the next steps will be the adaption by the electricity industry in Ireland, under the governance of the CER, of the national functional requirements for the overall smart metering solution.

Sustainable core

In terms of ESB's future plans, O'Shea cites the sustainability agenda that is core to all the company is currently doing. He explains that the sustainability strategy as having three core elements: firstly to get its carbon emissions down to net zero by 2035, which requires significant reengineering of our generation fleet - replacing existing fossil with renewables and clean fossil technology.

Secondly, a range of technology-based investments to fundamentally change how electricity is produced, transported and consumed in Ireland. Chief amongst these are implementation of smart networks, smart meters and electric vehicles. Thirdly, winning the hearts and minds of all in ESB in order to change their behaviors.

O'Shea feels there is a long way to go, but a very solid start has been made. "Once that is achieved," he says, "electricity will be the fuel of choice, because at the point of consumption there is no carbon equation if your production is net carbon zero; of course, this is even further amplified with the advent of electric vehicles.

"If we can implement smart networks to transport electricity in a smarter way; if we can implement smart meters to allow the system operator and the consumer to better control what they're doing; and if we can implement electric vehicles and have the smart network overseeing that; then we have the possibility to fundamentally change how electricity is generated, transported and consumed. We would see that as a visionary change in how utilities will operate."

Peter O'Shea is Chief Information Officer for the Electricity Supply Board (ESB), with its head office in Dublin, Ireland.

Jerry O'Sullivan is Sustainability and Systems Manager for ESB Networks.

Electric vehicle infrastructure to be built

In late October, ESB Chief Executive Padraig McManus, on behalf of Europe's electricity companies, presented EU Transport Commissioner Antonio Tajani with a declaration designed to pave the way for the widespread introduction of electric vehicles.

Europe's electricity companies have come together to standardize the apparatus necessary for the recharging of electric vehicles across Europe. Cooperation between the utilities is seen as vital for the rapid introduction of electric vehicles across the continent, allowing motorists in every country to use the same charging system.

ESB is to build the infrastructure required in Ireland for electric vehicles.

Chief executives of the major electricity companies have been discussing how the industry at large can decarbonise power generation. Decarbonised electricity could then be used to fuel the transport sector, which is responsible for a large percentage of CO2 emissions.

The signatories to the declaration confirmed their determination to cooperate with the various stakeholders towards the development and application of industry pre-standards, until standards have been set by the official standards bodies ISO/IEC.

Presenting the declaration on behalf of the electricity companies, McManus said that the transport sector is currently responsible for 23 percent of total EU carbon dioxide emissions, according to figures in the European Commission's Second Strategic Energy Review.