profile: Andrew Spencer, CLNR programme office manager

Published: 24th October 2012

CLNR manager Andrew Spencer not only has decades of experience in the network distribution business, he’s also adding his voice to the CLNR customer trials.

profile: Andrew Spencer, CLNR programme office manager

With his 33 years’ service as an engineer and manager with Northern Powergrid, and extensive regulation and project management expertise, Andrew Spencer was invited to join the Low Carbon Networks Fund CLNR project to work with the project delivery team and improve overall project management and governance.

The £54 million smart grid project, the largest in the UK, brings great responsibilities and Andrew’s role includes making sure that robust planning, monitoring and reporting arrangements are in place and that issues, risks and changes are managed effectively and discussed at the right level; all with the aim of ensuring that quality research outcomes are achieved, on time and on budget. Andrew also sits on both the CLNR Executive and Project Boards and he’s keeping an eye on other LCNF projects to identify potential areas of mutual support.

Andrew is not just involved in the management of a low carbon research project; he is also an active participant in the low carbon future. PV roof panels at home support the increase in renewable generation that the country needs to reduce its carbon dioxide emissions - and keep his own electricity bills down. He is also signed up for CLNR enhanced monitoring, and might install a micro generation boiler, making him eligible for yet another of the CLNR trials.

How did he get to this point? In 1979 the Yorkshire Electricity Board (as it then was) sponsored Andrew to train as an engineer and he’s not looked back. After gaining a first class honours degree in electrical engineering he cut his teeth on repairs and technical engineering, moved into primary construction and from there into his first management post in field operations construction. This was followed by major projects design where he gained a Masters degree in project management.

Andrew then moved into regulation, where he managed two distribution price control reviews, business separation and the introduction of the interruptions incentive scheme (IIS) before a move back to engineering brought him into Asset Management. Here he was instrumental in helping the Company achieve the PAS 55 certification for the optimised management of physical assets, before taking on the role of system performance manager.

So how is he finding his new role on the CLNR project? “Working with project partners from different companies has been a learning curve as each organisation has its own culture and ways of working. When a project is established, people assume that the participants can work effectively together from day one, but it doesn’t happen like that; it takes time to get used to each other, adapt your habits and find common ways of working. As a distribution network we are orientated towards customer-contractor relationships, where the customer specifies all of the requirements and the contractor delivers to the specification. This project is different; it is a collaboration where all the partners have been involved in defining the outcomes, designing and running the trials and analysing the data to fulfil those outcomes.

“I also thought, at the outset, that the value of the project would only be realised towards the end, in 2013, when the trials are completed and the results analysed. But that’s not the case. When you get together with other network operators, there is a lot of curiosity which I hadn’t really foreseen – such as questions about our procurement process for the network technology. People really want to know about the journey as well as the destination.

“There is a lot of interest from our own asset management colleagues and a desire to translate what we’re learning into our business plans. It seems that all network operators involved in LCNF projects are realising that they’re in the same boat, trying to keep their own asset management functions up to speed and looking at how best to get the information out there – and when to do it. So there’s a lot to think about; not only delivering the research but also how best to capture and communicate other lessons that are learned on the way. “