Ofgem Announces New Smart Grid Plans

Ofgem plans to create new smart grids in four different cities using funds saved from customers’ utilities bills to being renovating Britain’s electricity grids.

The industry regulator has asked several companies to choose towns or cities where they can install smart energy technologies to test and record how well the new grid may be working. The research will be aimed at completing redoing the country’s entire out-of-date electric grid. The ultimate goal will be to take the grid from being a centralised design dependent on fossil fuels, to smaller localised designs relying on local renewable energies.

The smaller grids will be constructed to operate on large volumes of power from wind farms. The new grids will also make it easier for current energy independent homes to sell their electricity back to the grid. The new smart metres attached to homes will monitor demand for the unpredictable supply of renewable forms of energy such as wind and solar power.

Ofgem is mimicking their new smart grid models to the smart grid that was established in the U.S. in Boulder, Colorado. The grid in Boulder has been deemed a success and helped to cut down the city’s dependance on fossil fuels.

“This is encouraging news. The electricity network has been designed for a centralised energy approach for a few large scale power stations dotted around the country feeding out towards users somewhere down the line in a dumb grid. It will be a substantial task to rewire it. With the new feed-in tariffs coming in next year, it will dynamite the market for microgeneration. But it’s important to have the infrastructure for it,” said Philip Wolfe director of the Renewable Energy Association.

The project has received  £500m in funding and is expected to span over the next five years. The project will also pose as some relief for power companies in the dwindling economic situation. 

Ofgem announced this project has falling under their five year plan to review distribution charges that electricity companies shell out to use the grid each year. 

Special thanks to guardian.co.uk for the above quote, for more information please view the article on their website