help for the low carbon network designer
Published: 24th October 2012
Network Planning and Design Decision Support, or NPADDS, is a prototype design tool on the CLNR drawing board to support network designers in their day-to-day decision making. A key output from the project, it will help convert theory into practice.
help for the low carbon network designer
As the network becomes ‘smarter’, with new devices connecting to it and customers taking and exporting power in different ways, network designers will be faced with many more variables. Network Planning and Design Decision Support, or NPADDS, is a pilot software tool that will feature as a key output of the CLNR project.
This tool will help designers cut to the chase, by assessing the network quickly and presenting a set of options of what’s most likely to work in a given situation. With built-in network analysis and the ability to suggest conventional as well as ‘smarter’ solutions to alleviate network constraints, engineers involved in developing NPADDS believe that it will allow designers to consider the most cost effective options and make more informed design choices.
Low carbon technologies can have an adverse effect on the network. The CLNR project is testing a range of solutions such as demand-side response, real-time thermal rating and electrical energy storage. What is learned from these trials, including the amount of network headroom released and the costs associated with technical solutions, will be incorporated into the NPADDS assessment tool.
NPADDS will import network models from spatial data and integrate with existing design and asset management tools. It will model and simulate local loads and the range of potential solutions to allow designers to quickly understand the effect they have on the network. In this way, NPADDS will give the design engineer the ability to make appropriate assessments of the impact of smarter network technologies and operations. If it proves to be successful, the prototype tool could also be interesting to other distribution network operators, to support today’s and future designers.
This work is being led by EA Technology and is forecast to deliver in late 2013.