UK: Schneider Electric has launched a smart grid project that aims to support the growth of low carbon energy in the UK's North West. The project, which will take three years to complete, will see 2.4 million households served by Electricity North West supported by new smart grid technologies. The automated network will be able to monitor and automatically respond to local power demand in real-time, ensuring energy is distributed as efficiently as possible across the region. Schneider Electric claims the new smart grid functionality will make the region better equipped to respond to peaks and troughs in demand and will consequently make it easier to successfully integrate renewable energy projects into the grid.
The company believes that the new functionality will also be able to detect and automatically resolve power outages. For example, it will be able to react to incidents such as storm damage, forging alternative connections to ensure more households continue to receive power.
Source: Business Green
