 This morning's event on keeping the grid stable in a high renewables market, and we've got a pretty impressive lineup of speakers today and then we'll be doing a Q&A towards the end and I'll answer over to Alexander Stafford MP and he's going to give us our opening keynote. Thank you very much for the introduction and thank you so much for having me here today. I'm very much looking forward to the discussion and the presentations later on. I'd like to give you a bit of background with me and why I'm interested in this. So obviously, my name is Alexander Stafford. I'm a Conservative Member of Parliament for Rother Valley, which for those who don't know is basically South Yorkshire, the southernmost bit of Yorkshire, and a former Red Wall seat. Before becoming an MP in 2019, I worked in both the energy and the environmental industries, first ahead of UK media for the WWF, the World Wildlife Fund, concentrating mainly on energy and climate change, and then more literally just for elected for shelf. You may have heard of on-products relating to the future of energy and transport. So for me, this is very much an important issue that we need to be discussing. In my tenure so far as being an MP, I was elected to serve on the BASE, the Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy Select Committee, and we're currently in the process of acquiring the UK's net zero targets and UK climate strategy summits. So the BASE Select Committee really does look at energy, hence why this discussion date is so important. So basically, the role of BASE is to ensure that the government is making good progress and remains on course to achieve our national target of net zero by 2050. We have inquiries, we raise issues and these points that we feel need more attention and do what we can to keep the government honest almost, keep them on track. So obviously this government is doing a very good job, but the UK has them tracked. And this of course means there's a lot of internal discussion about renewable energy and innovative technology. We've also been doing a lot of work to get the UK ready to host COP26 and Glasgow next year. I'm not sure if everyone is aware of here, but last week during a BASE Select Committee session, the BASE Minister, Kwasi Kwateng, confirmed the UK would use the presidency of both COP26 and the GCMA to promote faster and better global climate change action. And that's obviously a fantastic thing. We as the government are trying to push forward a greener, cleaner agenda globally and it really seems that despite coronavirus, despite all the issues, the government is going to stay on track and actually go further and faster when it comes to a greener energy system, which I think everyone will be very pleased about. Now the net zero energy system of 2050 will look very different to that of today. We will no longer burn coal, oil and gas to generate electricity in a main and power industrial processes. Cars will no longer run on petrol and diesel and our homes will no longer be heated on natural gas. Obviously, there will be exceptions to that. There's going to be historic cars, historic oil, which you can't decarbonise. But as a whole, the average person's life when it comes to energy will look very, very different from what we see today. That is obviously a great thing. By 2050, most of our electricity will be generated from renewable sources. Many industrial processes will switch to electricity. Most of our cars will run on batteries. Many of our homes will be heated by electric heat pumps. However, and this is something I want to put as a challenge into the room, is electrification is not the whole answer because some industrial processes cannot simply be electrified, especially not in 30 years time, which is a relatively small period. Batteries, for example, will not be appropriate for all vehicles and heat pumps will not be appropriate for homes. As such, when it comes to the next step within the UK's energy sector, I am a huge advocate of green gas, particularly hydrogen. I very much view it as the field of the future, as is the transition to a hydrogen economy as essential if the UK is to achieve its natural target of next year by 2050. Hydrogen also has potential to provide valuable energy system flexibility, helping to manage inter-seasonal supply and demand imbalances and build system resilience. It also gives us that huge advantage when it comes to developing new technology that's doing its infancy. As UK PLC, we have the opportunity to not just build that better by talking, but actually be a world leader global leader in this technology. It is for these reasons that I outlined that Europe has already made an essential part of the trillion-dollar green deal and published a comprehensive EU-wide green hydrogen strategy back in July. Germany, France and Netherlands have also made huge investments into their own natural hydrogen economies and the UK must ultimately do the same or risk being left behind. And this is one of the reasons I've been lobbying our government for a coherent UK hydrogen strategy and I am anxious to see that these published are implemented as soon as possible. I believe a national hydrogen strategy will also galvanise public and private sectors while unlocking new investment and resources. The hydrogen economy is literally worth 2.5 trillion US dollars and supporting 30 million jobs by 2050. I am pleased to be able to say that the UK does have a capability and is in a very strong position to become a world pioneer in hydrogen technology and attract a significant proportion of the global market. What we start to see now is clear commitments to hydrogen by the government, which create market confidence that I think is needed to encourage private investment. Given proper attention, hydrogen could be as important for the green revolution as carbon was for the industrial revolution. Its strengths are in its versatility. It can be used as a feedstock, as a fuel or an anti-carrier. It can be used as storage and be applied across industry that have already been seen in the transport and the building sector. Representing a former Redwall seat, the link between renewables and levelling up is particularly interesting to me. A lot of former Redwall areas like Rother Valley have industrial heritage, skilled local workforce and expertise to set up and run renewable sites. Importantly, these areas are also those that would benefit most from levelling up. Localised green economies are already playing an incredibly important role in helping this government deliver the regional empowerment it promised at the last election. Investment into regional renewable energy facilities will not only help decarbonise Britain and bolster the green economy, but will do so finding the local investment needed to create jobs and develop our left-behind communities. Hydrogen fuel, when produced by a renewable source of energy, like wind or solar, which is still a few years off, but we can get there, is a renewable fuel. And I'm pleased to be welcoming the world's largest hydrogen electrolyser factory on the border of my own constituency of Rother Valley, which has made fantastic investments in the local area and looking to take full advantage of South Yorkshire's skilled local workforce. Ultimately, projects such as this being undertaken by the private sector are representative for the fact that the UK does have the capability to lead the world's hydrogen economy. I'd just like to end on and round off by saying that I am a firm believer that the region's most need of economic rejuvenation, like Yorkshire and Humber, should be the centre of Britain's green recovery and the foundation on which we build that greener. And more importantly, I have every confidence this government can make this through. And it's obviously hydrogen important, but electricity and there's so many options, but we need to make sure those areas in the north, like mine, these left-behind areas, get the full benefit of the economic recovery as well as the carbon recovery. The path in it is there has never been so clear. It's only with mutual cooperation between government, businesses, and the new sector that we're going to reach this goal. And it's exciting to listen to what our fantastic analysts have to say today. So thank you very much for having me. I look forward to some very interesting and intuitive ideas. Thank you so much, Alexander. It's really great to hear about the condition of both the committee and the government in fulfilling our climate change ambitions. I think we'd all agree that wholesale electrification is a fair challenge and that a shift to a hydrogen economy is essential. Just to flag to yourself and everyone else listening, E&A runs our Gasco's green programme that is setting and creating the roadmap of how to deliver a hydrogen economy, including hydrogen ready boiler mandates, hydrogen blending within the existing network and supporting the shift to hydrogen in both heavy industry and transportation. Also just to flag, this is the first of the series of events where we're seeking to make this and explain some of those unanswered questions about the shift to a zero economy. There will be future events on hydrogen, we've got a pipeline already that we're developing. We're confirming the date of the next one that is due to be January. That next event is all about domestic flexibility and how households themselves are becoming more active participants in the energy system. And I'd encourage everyone to register to attend that or to hear more about our future events with the link that we're going to serve around following this event. For those who don't know us, the Energy Network Association represents the companies that operate and maintain the gas and electricity network in both the UK and Ireland. Our members serve over 30 million customers and are responsible for the transmission distribution network of wires and pipes that keep our lights on our homes, walls and businesses running. Crucially, there are also the companies that are building the foundation to a net zero economy. So far, they've connected over 25 people on the series of distributive renewables. They're responsible for putting up our ever-expanding official wind loop main network. And there are also companies that, as I just mentioned, operate the forefront of the shift to hydrogen economy too. The shift is reflected of the wider transition with the rapid decarbonisation, digitalisation and decentralisation of the energy system. The world leadership that we're developing in hydrogen, which Alexander just described, is something that we've already achieved in power grids and through a number of innovations, such as those we're going to discuss today. Delivering this transition has itself necessitated a huge amount of innovation to make sure that the networks are fit for what is an increasingly changing purpose as we shift away from big, heavy, centralised plant them to a much more distributed model. One example of this is the open networks project which we run with our members. This is a programme of work which is helping to transition to a smart, flexible system that connects large-scale energy generation right down to solar panels and electric vehicles installed in the homes, businesses and communities right across the country. Within that, the ability is central to it. So open networks recently hit a major milestone with over two gigawatts of flexibility being tendered out in local flexibility markets, making the UK the world's largest market for local flexibility. And the innovations driven by initiatives like the open networks project make a big part of the shift to what is increasingly being a smarter grid. The networks already use a huge amount of data to keep the lights on as reliably and efficiently as possible. But with the grid undergoing a major transition, this reliance on data, flexibility and smart solutions is set to only increase. What we're here today to talk about is the innovations which reduce play a big role in keeping the lights on in the future, ensuring that grid remains stable as we're ever more reliant upon it. The renewables fleet is due to drastically increase over the next decade, with offshore wind units alone due to double. Added to it, electric vehicles can become the norm, following the internal combustion engine ban, due 2030 if their reports are correct. And with the electrification of much of our heating, the role of the power networks is only going to increase as it directly enables the shift to acting as that foundation. Now, this increase in function and the drastic change in our generation that's powering it has the potential to shift the inertia within the system which keeps it running stably. For context, inertia is the force that keeps the system stable through the kinetic energy found in the rotating mass of traditional turbines, all of which currently turn in synchronicity with one another. It's currently generated through the large spinning piece of metal that we've seen conventional power plants like coal, gas, biomass and nuclear. And considering how integral these forms of generation have been to the grid, inertia has always been pretty much guaranteed. However, what we're now seeing is that with coal and negligible power plants, which have been used to decommissioning in the coming decades and unabated gas, not legally allowed to generate place 25 feet, alternative solutions will be needed. Crucially, the renewables that we're deploying in the UK, namely wind and solar, don't generate inertia in the same way. So we have to innovate as much as we have with the rest of our grids. The UK has led the world in this shift to a high renewable system. And as we're going to hear shortly, it's continuing to do so with the technical solutions that support the transition. It's a real testament to our panel today and the wider industry who are really paving the way with network companies across Europe, East Asia, and in particular watching what we're doing and what they can emulate. And now, before I hand over to Barbara and the panel, it's just worth lagging about in addition to the parliamentary member holding in January, it's our energy networks innovation conference next month with Mr. Parton giving the keynote speech. We'll be sharing the details of that as well on this event. Oh, right. I thought we were going to get a little film there before you passed over, but thank you very much. Honestly, I think the introduction there from Alexander and Josh has just been incredible setting the scene for the excitement and innovation and collaboration and change that we're going to see over the next few years. I mean, I came into the electricity industry way back in the early 90s when we had an electricity pool and for anyone who isn't aware about what that is, it was a we moved away from the Central Electricity Generating Board to a contractual relationship between generators and suppliers where we were able to hold additional capacity capability of 20% over and above what we needed to ensure that the light stayed on and here we are today where we've got prosumers what on earth were they we didn't even have a vision that people might be in their homes wanting to produce energy and use energy we've got innovators in front of us today who are going to tell us about what their businesses are doing to contribute to keeping the lights on and you don't want me waffling on about me, I really want to get on to the speakers here and we've lined up three caucus for you before they begin I should just tell you about some housekeeping the meeting is being recorded we have a chat function whereby we would like you to submit any questions that you might have I'm going to ask the panellists to make their presentation one after the other and then we'll take the questions and go through the answers after they have finished I hope that's clear we've got Daniel monitoring the Q&A's so he's going to keep me up to date with what answers you're after so we have David Wildash who is the senior manager at national grid ESO who's going to talk to us about the stability pathfinder and our ambition for zero carbon operation from 2025 great target there we've got Chris Wickins director of great services at Welsh Power and he's going to tell us about new synchronous condenser and flywheel technology and then we've got Mark Borrett who is the CEO at Active Technologies and he's going to tell us about grid metrics inertia measurement all well I remember when I was first introduced to inertia at the grid code review panel by Guy Nicholson who kept banking on about how much renewable energy there was going to be on the system and what were we going to do about inertia anyway I wait with a bit of breath to hear the answer David over to you my dear great thank you and good morning everybody it's a real pleasure to be part of this panel today and to have the opportunity to talk about stability inertia and indeed our 2025 target so as Bar as Kylie said my name is David Wildash I work for national grid ESO and I'm the market services senior manager within the team there so if we just move to the first slide here I just want to very quickly give a quick introduction to the ESO so the electricity system operator we are a legally separate part of the wider national grid group and we're essentially accountable for the movement of electricity safely reliably and efficiently throughout the transmission network and fundamentally our primary role is to keep the lights on and balance the system on a second by second day by day 365 days a year we've also got accountability for looking at network planning all the way through to real time how we can figure the network to manage both the generation and demand outlook in the circuits that are disposal but also looking 20 30 years out as we look at what are the infrastructure investments that we need to make sure and the infrastructure that we need and the operational services to manage the system of the future and finally we design and run the markets for the procurement of these services at which we procure and one of these that we're going to be focusing on today is stability if we move on to the next slide I won't say any more around us okay so as Barbara said we do have a zero carbon operational ambition so as we know we really need to focus on the carbonization of the energy system and really help address the ever-increasing challenge of climate change the key element there is to move to move to and lower and even get to zero carbon emissions from the electricity system as well as looking at the other major areas of emissions such as heat and transport over the last decade we've made significant inroads into taking that and really started to see a reduction in the carbon intensity of the system however we need to continue to do more to drive out further carbon from the system and we really need to think and plan about how we operate the electricity system enabling ever higher volumes of renewables onto the system to reach that zero carbon goal that we've got where we are as an organization one of the key ambitions that we have is to provide the platform to operate the system entirely with zero carbon sources of electricity by 2025 and that is I should caveat should the market provide the availability of those resources for us essentially we want to make sure that we're not a blocker to hitting that ambition and getting on as much renewables onto the market as we can we need to operate in a very different way to the traditional model of power system operation and really allow us to operate generation on an unconstrained or renewable generation on an unconstrained basis and this is really going to need us to resolve some real key critical engineering challenges today to manage safely and securely we bring on conventional power plants to provide key system and balancing services such as voltage control inertia frequency response what we need to do is transition in a way and make sure that we have the sources of these grid services to allow the full suite of renewables to play a meaningful and growing part of the overall generation mix so we really want to be at the forefront making sure that that is a reality okay can we move on to the next slide please okay so this I just wanted to hone in and really talk about how we're going to need to respond to the changing energy landscape as it's been mentioned before we've made significant inroads into decarbonising the electricity mix the biggest change here clearly shown is the reduction in the volume of coal and by 2024 that journey will have finished with the last coal plant coming off the system replacing that energy in that electricity generation we're seeing lots more solar and wind and biomass coming onto the system and indeed last year was the greenest year on record in terms of electricity generation and it looks as though we're set to beat that this year and you may see and notice in 2020 that significant uptick in terms of the volume of electricity generated from low carbon and renewable sources that's very much that with lower overall demands due to COVID the volume of sources provided through those areas has increased an overall proportion of the next mix so you know we've got ever increasing targets 2030 we're likely to see 40 kilowatts of offshore wind supplementing and transitioning away from coal and gas as we go forward so what we need to do in terms of stability is make sure that we find a way to replace the services that we have traditionally relied upon from thermal plant, gas, nuclear and indeed coal and we need to make sure that we find a way of providing those services both from renewals but also looking for new technologies to provide that to make sure that we continue to run a stable system and key and we'll find out later more from Mark around is our ability to understand inertia and really monitor in real time so we can more accurately optimise the system and procure the services that we require and we'll hear more from reactive technologies as we go forward today. We'll move to the next slide please. Okay so to deliver the stability in greens that we require to manage a stable system we need to harness all the available renewable power and we need to make sure that we have those tools so our solution to this is launching something called stability pathfinders we've called them pathfinders because these are very much first and world activities of going out for inertia and stability services from the market and indeed in our phase one we went out for what is called a zero megawatt service where we're just procuring the inertia rather than the active power. So to talk a little bit more around phase one this was launched in November 2019 to the first phase and we've started to see service delivered from that this year and that was from Cruegan through the tender we managed to bring in five new sites to provide inertia across a differing number of technologies to start to replace the existing thermal plant the coal that was enclosing other gas sites who were traditionally provided that inertia that we need on the system in total we spent £328 million on that tender round lasting six years and we estimate the totality that's going to say again consume £128 million compared to the alternative of dispatching thermal generation within the balancing mechanism to provide that inertia that we're required and just to put a ready reckoner on that that tender round probably equivalent of the inertia and stability services that you would have traditionally seen from around five coal stations on the system. So that's been phase one and as we've learnt by doing through the power finder approach we're stepping through and we've just launched our second stability power finder so power finder phase two. The focus here is in Scotland because this is a region where we've noticed and assessed that we require the services that can be provided it differs from phase one where we're actively we're encouraging differing solutions from the cost across the industry and we don't have that caveat that we had in the first phase where we said that it had to be a zero megawatt service so this time we've removed that environment from the market and one of the key areas that we're looking at is something called short circuit level this is another kind of stability service that we require as well as inertia and that's what we're going to procure in Scotland. Again this is a large scale contracting round with a potential between six and eight years of services that we'll be contracting for within those sort of regions. As we mature and we stimulate the market and see new solutions come to the fore we'll then move into stability phase three and the concept of that is that that's going to be a national tender round and enduringly like we want to do with all the answer services that we procure we want to bring these markets closer to real time and create markets for the continual procurement of stability services but that is something we're built as we stimulate the market work with partners getting these new innovative solutions onto the system so I'll summarise there we want to work collaboratively with the market to bring these new services to the fore and we believe that in doing so that we can procure the services that we require to make sure that we are prepared to operate the system in 2025 on a zero carbon basis and drive further renewable generation onto the system as we go beyond 2025 at that point I'll draw it to a close and hand back to Barbara I think you're on mute Barbara Yeah sorry I muted myself but I couldn't unmute myself I came to my rescue or Josh thank you while that was really really interesting I've got questions about following that but best thing to the audience to ask first and we'll catch up near the end thank you for that we're now going over to Chris Wiccans who is going to tell us about his new synchronous condenser and flower wheel there you go take it away is Chris on mute? I've just managed to be on muted so thanks very much it's very nice to be here seven years ago I was a civil servant so I had a little interaction with Parliament at that point but few things have happened since so I'm here today to introduce Welsh Power and what Welsh Power are doing in the phase one stability path finder so we were very excited to be awarded a phase one contract and I'll tell you a bit more about it in a minute first I thought if we could move to the next slide I would just briefly tell you a bit about Welsh Power so this is Welsh Power by Pictures Welsh Power was formed in 2004 it sounds like a massive company like Scottish Power it's not six employees we're an employee owned business but back in 2004 it was formed and bought uskmouth coal fired power station so that's one for the power station geeks out there if you've got the picture in the top right well done Welsh Power was the company that developed and built seven power which obviously bring in the press a little bit recently we're not involved anymore and in recent history we've I think really led the way I think we'd be fair to say in terms of flexible gas generation so the pictures in the bottom right are examples of gas engines in embedded generating sites so these are assets that can turn on very quickly at the click of a button to top up electricity supplies and crucially not have to be synchronised for long periods of time to provide megawatts we manage for several clients 550 megawatts of assets like that out of our headquarters in Cardiff where we have our 24-7 ops desk and similar support teams behind the camera in that photo let's move on and talk about our phase one stability project so Josh did a good introduction here of explaining that as traditional coal and gas fire power stations close the inherent properties of their ginormous generators and ginormous turbines that are connected to them are lost from the system so the project that we're now building in south Wales really directly adds that back without providing any megawatts and I'll just talk you through the main components so this is a pretty picture provided by our REBC contractor the main component is referred to as a synchronous condenser so that's not generating any power that's actually using a little bit of power to keep it spinning but in all the best way of thinking about it is a combination between a very large generator and a very large flywheel and that's really exactly what it is so it's like the big generator that you used to have in your coal fire power station or your gas fire power station except there's nothing driving it it's actually using a little bit of the electricity from the grid to keep it spinning the next component I'll highlight in here is the middle one the flywheel so the synchronous condenser on its own has quite a lot of inertia but the way to really increase that inertia is to add a flywheel and that isn't anything too much more complicated than exactly what it sounds like it's a relatively big, relatively heavy piece of metal spinning at synchronous speed 3,000 rpm and there's a lot of energy in that I'll go on to that in a minute we've got some other things I'll just briefly talk through here you need a system to start it so that's also inside this industrial facility there's a step up transformer so this facility is connected to the distribution network at 132 kV and the step up transformer is the thing that steps the voltage down to the machine terminal voltage there is a lot of energy in this and the potential for something to go wrong is not really worth thinking about there's that much energy so it's completely redundant safety critical control and protection equipment that in this facility are containerised solutions so they can be built in controlled environments outside the main plant building so that's a fairly detailed look at what we're building and other people have already explained why we're building it on the next slide we have a picture that the we can move on to the next slide so I'm not sure the Welsh tourist board are particularly going to thank me for the picture on the screen but this is the live as of about three weeks ago seen on this site in South Wales so construction work has very much started in terms of what this facility does it provides about 1% of Great Britain's inertia requirement and I can be more specific the facility is going to provide just over 1.1 giga volt amp seconds and I think National Grid David can correct me but would often say that 110, 120, 130 giga volt amp seconds is about what they need in inertia terms to keep frequency stable it's also been completely developed or completely it went through its final investment decision during lockdown and it continues to be built in South Wales so they've actually just come out of their firebreak but construction continues despite Covid I thought it would be worth mentioning the red wall actually this facility is supporting highly skilled jobs in South Wales as well as powers based as it turns out it's some red wall seats that the technical people at various contractors are actually based in so this is on message as far as the red wall and building back better narrative is concerned and I'm not sure do I have another slide yes I do importantly I thought I would use a little soapbox to make a few observations I guess when we talk about operating the grid in a zero carbon world that fosters some sense of a challenge or it's not possible my first message would be to say don't worry and frankly build all the renewables you want I think the industry collectively have got operating the electricity network stably covered that's not to say there isn't a lot of hard work involved to get there there will be a lot of hard work involved to get there but I think the industry collectively has got the challenge covered the second point I wanted to make was that quite often it's not uncommon that national grid gets a bit of a bashing but to their credit absolutely leading the way globally on this stability initiative and I think they are the example to transmission system operators around the world and even to just really stress that point I think the idea actually I'm not aware of any other system operator following so far the idea of publishing solution neutral requirements and letting the private sector come forward with solutions as we've done that other people may have different solutions that achieve the same requirements is absolutely the right thing to do so credit to national grid they are doing a very good job in this space the third point is one is in many senses an engineer less interesting to talk about than the innovative new equipment being installed this I think is in danger of being another area where regulations are going to struggle to keep up with the pace at which the industry operates so there is a key role for Bayes and Offgem here the technologies don't sit very well in the current regulatory framework I'm not the expert on that but I do know enough to know that there is some challenges in that respect and that is really important because I think the fundamental to this whole competitive approach and best value for consumers is making sure there is a level playing field so there isn't a playing field that's sloped in favour of transmission owner monopolies sorry just to sort of say it how it perhaps is at the moment or how I see how it is at the moment but if done right I think national grid approach and the private sector's innovation will totally have this covered so I hope you have a positive note to hand back to Barbara that was very interesting thank you and it was good to see that your contractors are all socially distanced in that photograph so well done okay so the audience all of you out there I hope you're thinking about some suitable questions to pause after we hear from Mark Mark Borrett from Reactive Technologies who's going to tell us about grid metrics inertia measurement over to you Mark okay thank you Barbara and I guess having heard from David and heard from Chris we sort of sit in between the two really so for us the area that we operate in and the we add in this whole energy transition equation is to provide visibility on stability so what happens and as Chris showed with his really nice diagram of what makes up a inertia so 0 megawatt inertia service provision is there is physics at play and really inertia and the change of inertia is down to a changing in physics of the grid so Daniel maybe if we could go to the next slide wanted to come up with yeah I can consider it for me there we go so you've heard a bit about inertia it's one of these very niche top lens itself to very weird and wonderful analogies the simplest one I can come up with is a child spinning toy and you would know the difference if you spun a heavy metal spinning top versus a very lightweight plastic one the heavy metal one would continue spinning for longer that's because it's got this store of rotational energy and that is very much analogous to how the power system operates in the you know maybe 10 20 years ago we had predominantly thermal generation we've talked about this these large spinning masses those stored up rotational energy in the power system as we transition into a cleaner greener power system that everyone wants the physics do change so as those large coal plants get decommissioned as we heard from David that rotational store of energy that they provide leaves as well and when you are then replacing those with DC connected inverters typically those really only respond to weather they don't respond to how the power system is actually operating in that given moment in time and that basically plays out in terms of how stable the system which is the one of the core requirements of national grid system operator to maintain this frequency within relatively tight bands around 50 hertz in a higher system if you have a power station failure yes you get a drop in frequency but it's relatively small and you have time to react and in that scenario you can think of the power system as really like a large steam train and just keep on running as however you move to a less inertia heavy system and into more of a low inertia environment when you have a power station failure for example frequency falls further and faster and you have a bigger hole or effectively national grid has a bigger hole to pull the system out of which means that the system starts to become more complex and more costly and you need more resources to bring the system back to its normal operating mode and that's really at the heart of this so maybe we can go on to the next slide so that is I've just covered what is stability what is inertia the next thing is really the visibility of inertia where does it exist so again Daniel if you could go through inertia predominantly the transmission system national grid has full visibility scale generator is connected through the scale system however there is inertia again synchronously connected pumps but the issue here is that that unfortunately of national grid and the operation somewhere in the country is hard to see it has great visibility of what connects in the transmission grid limited visibility of what happens in the distribution grid and again from the past to the future the inertia that is in the distribution grid starts to become equally more important than when you had a system predominantly based out of transmission connected assets as a result in the control room you have to estimate if you can't directly see it or measure it you have to estimate what that inertia contribution from distribution connected assets is and as a result that starts to bring in errors which equally carry risk for national grid so again if we could go forward one more slide please Daniel what this actually turns out to be if you could increment it once from national grid's perspective in the control room is a bit like looking at the road ahead through a windscreen that is covered in water you are not really really sure how much inertia you have because although you can see a lot from the transmission grid that is reducing and you don't really know what's on the distribution grid and I think by being able to measure inertia accurately for the first time is a bit like having windscreen wipers you can see clearly what's ahead of you and that brings some key benefits so again Daniel if you wouldn't mind you can integrate more renewables and potentially also curtail less renewables because you know how much inertia is on the system more accurately that means the services you procure you can buy the right services and deploy them at the right times and I think that stability pathfinder that Chris obviously went into detail and David shared is really part of that same initiative that you can now do with more certainty and you can create these markets that provide more economic services for the power system and there's just two more points please Daniel to click through you can manage system risk better because you know what you're dealing with and ultimately that means you can achieve savings in terms of the cost of running the system so where reactive fit in if we could go to the next side please Daniel we are a I would say technical company we're an energy technology company and we have had a breakthrough that was done very much in partnership with National Grid if you could increment it one more please Daniel so in 2017 we did a joint project with National Grid where we proved that we could measure inertia which again is a topic a bit like the Higgs Boson this sort of quite you know intangible concept to think about but it is a physical property and up until this point it was something that wasn't able to be fully measured across the whole power system and we were able to prove that that was now possible with our technique so if we could go to the next slide I will explain that technique so the way we measure inertia in the UK system is very much akin to a sonar system but different so with sonar you send out an acoustic wave or an ultrasonic wave and you wait for it to be reflected here we're not sending out an ultrasonic wave we're sending out a pulse of power a relatively small pulse of power typically in the order of 5 megawatts but that pulse of power transfers itself through the entire UK system and what we then have is a range of measurement devices across the UK from the north to the south to the east to the west which are then able to physically measure how the power system has coped with that small stimulation that we've given it from our modulator which in this case is an ultracapacitor or a supercapacitor so we're physically shaking the power system in a tiny tiny way that from in the control room would look like noise but then with our measurement devices that are highly accurate they see how the power system has reacted to that stimulus that we've given it all those measurements get transferred into our cloud and our cloud then comes up with a national figure for inertia so in the gigawatts per second typically and these are then passed into national goods control room through an API a software interface so that in the control room national grid now have what is the game changer from their perspective is a continuous measurement this isn't something that randomly or sporadically happens this is now something that is continuously feeding that live accurate view of how stable the power system is which suddenly means that they have a clear view of how to optimize the system as David mentioned earlier if we could go to the next slide please Daniel so this is to again try and bring it to life a bit for everyone if you could just do one click please Daniel so what you see is a yellow line and that yellow line is basically the input that national grid gets from the transmission connected asset so this is summing up all those large power stations knowing what they're producing knowing the rating of those machines and coming up with an aggregate figure of how much inertia is from or based or coming out of the transmission system then in order to calculate what may also be on the distributed to get a view of the full picture if you could please Daniel there is an estimate made to get to what could be on the distribution system and that is basically then in the current state of the arts for national grid how stability is determined in terms of an operational sense so national grid operates somewhere between the red line and the yellow line depending on you know their view of certainty about how confident they are of the estimates in the distribution system the blue line is our measurement data so again if you could just click it on one more time please Daniel so this is now our data that is then fed in and as you can see in the main the blue line is above the red line so what we were able to show national grid when we were doing our measurements on the UK system is that sometimes and quite often there is more inertia on the system than national grid would actually estimate in the control room but not all the time and just as it's important sorry was someone asking a question oh ok it's maybe feedback so what's important here is that by having a real measurement national grid can be more confident in their actions in the control room and can take I guess better steps to optimise the stability on the system one thing that happened whilst we were going through this I guess pilot phase with national grid is that there was a power station failure and if you could just press the button one more time please Daniel which allowed national grid to take an estimate measurement rather of the inertia on the system and as you can see the measurement that they were able to derive from that power station failure coincided pretty much spot on with where we had measured inertia to be so what we've been able to prove is that this system is highly accurate in terms of measuring inertia the key thing is it's a repeatable continuous measurement that just gives that full visibility into the system operator to basically make the right decision so rather than feel that you're approaching the edge of the limits of the system by measuring it you can see you have a bit more room and so that may allow less renewables to be or larger scale power stations to be downlaped a bit so you can start to see how being able to measure rather than estimate gives national grid a new capability in terms of properly navigating this renewable energy transition if we could go to the next slide please Daniel you don't have to just take my word for it David I'm sure you know Finton very well last year Finton did a bit of an offensive but went on into the media and sort of shared a bit more about inertia to sort of I think make people a bit more aware of the topic and why it's really important prior to the pathfinders starting to come out but inertia is at the heart of the renewable energy transition it's fundamental it drives how the power system responds based on stresses and strains that come about through its daily operation if we could go just one more slide please Daniel in terms of value what does this actually mean for UK tax payers well this is public data these are the costs I guess of managing the power system the UK power system as inertia declines as you can see there's an inverse relationship as inertia declines the cost of managing the system go up that's not a surprise because it just becomes much harder to manage the system you need more interventions but in terms of the value with national grid they would estimate that being able to measure inertia would allow them to improve their estimation by 10% which would mean that you know on a conservative basis that may save 14 million pounds a year which over the length of our first contract with national grid should achieve a saving to UK energy users of over 70 million pounds obviously as costs go up that 14 million pounds may go up and if we base it on last year it may turn into a saving of over 100 million pounds this is a real I would say sizable contribution to the renewable energy challenge and it ultimately enables savings for UK energy consumers which I think is also critical just the last slide please Daniel one more increment I don't want anyone to think that this is somehow a UK only problem yes we're seeing it in the UK that's a function of being an island but also I would say national grid are absolutely at the forefront of this and as Chris mentioned earlier about you know giving praise to national grid for publishing the requirements national grid are without question ahead of the pack globally in terms of looking at inertia and taking positive steps to manage it more effectively many other system operators around the world are looking at what national grid are doing and they're using the approaches that national grid are taking to basically inform their choices as they go through this renewable energy transition themselves and there are some countries that are in you know very serious serious states Australia is suffering great challenges from lack of inertia lack of system strength but it's any power system that is going through that renewable energy transition is faced with the same physics no one is seen from this and from reactive standpoint having such a world-class lead customer such as national grid has enabled us to engage with many system operators now around the world and we see this really as a UK success story this is a UK innovation really about I think any capable to any country going through this renewable energy journey and so it's national grid have been incredibly supportive and very open to share their experiences with other system operators around the world so they really do need to be applauded for that so I think I just had a final slide Daniel just on us as a company we are a slightly hybrid business we are a UK company but we also have a Finnish side to us we have a R&D team in Finland and our core goal is to deliver services that can help the renewable energy transition we've built now quite an exciting portfolio of technologies inertia measurement is at the core but as I said we're now starting to operate on a global basis with many other system operators around the world and see the challenges they're facing are much the same as national grid but national grid is absolutely at the forefront of taking the right steps to make the transition as possible and as effective as they can so that was my short presentation and I think over back to you Barbara thank you it was really really interesting and it's great to see the fact that you've tested it out in anger and it's been proven to work alongside a partner like national grid and we'll be able to take it forward from there that's super thank you thank you okay so we will go to the Q&A session and Fernando Morales you're really burning yourself out there you've got a few questions in the chat line if anyone else has any please please do add them in there so I guess the first one Fernando is asking is about procuring inertia and then short circuit levels separately limiting revenue streams for innovative solutions and limiting development for innovation should I come to David and ask whether this looking at a bundled approach is something that you're thinking of maybe for that third phase of the programme sure so I think the long and the short as hopefully I articulated is that the main pathfinder this is learning by doing as Chris and Mark have hopefully pointed out we are at the forefront in the vanguard of looking to procure the stability services that we require to bring further renewables onto the system in phase one that was just for a inertia service however the one that we're running at the moment in Scotland we are looking and we do value both short circuit level and indeed inertia so we are looking when we assess any bidders into that tender the dual value of both those elements predominantly on the short circuit level for the Scottish pathfinder but there is value that we derive and accrue from the inertia as well so to your point Barbara when we look at phase three absolutely we're learning by doing as we step through these we want to transition to a fluid market for stability and all the sub-components which sit underneath that and certainly as part of phase three again like the others we will be consulting with the industry and potential providers to really understand what solutions and technologies and innovation are out there for us to get access to so absolutely it's something we'll be looking at and I'm assuming if you haven't come across Fernando before he's keen to speak to you so between the two of you perhaps you should reach out and have a bit of a chat but we'll do that Mark or Chris have you anything to add to that I don't I think David but it particularly well yeah good okay so Roger Hollies is asking Chris a direct question here whether you could explain why they are looking to install both flywheel and synchronous condenser rather than just one technology type would you like to take that question away please Chris yes and it follows on from David's explanation just there so stability phase one was all about inertia and therefore the solution that we brought forward how we responded to the requirements that were published was to try and provide as much inertia as possible and the way to do that we felt in that instance was to add a flywheel to the synchronous condenser the synchronous condenser on its own would provide I'll get the numbers wrong about a third of the inertia that the whole system can provide so by adding the flywheel you become much more competitive in a pounds per unit of inertia term okay hopefully that answered your question Roger we have one here from Jeffrey Douglas if the stability value of inertia is a means to dispatch power with a low ramp cost what is the justification for procuring inertia to the exclusion of other technology for example echem energy storage which can provide the same grid stability service who wants to take that challenge well David if you want to I don't mind I think you go so you carry on so I would answer it I mean I'm not familiar with I guess we're talking about storage why don't things like batteries just replace this sort of reducing inertia on the system the challenge you've got is that as inertia drops your frequency stability becomes less and less stable which means that smaller changes that power imbalance on the system have a big effect on frequency so if you're not careful the system becomes you know much you have lower inertia on the system if you have too much storage it can actually hunt itself it can respond to a low frequency event but if there's not enough inertia and you've got too much storage it can actually then create a high frequency event and then it can respond to that so you need to make that A you can accurately quantify the inertia you have on the system and then B size the assets that respond and the nature of the response so that you're not actually creating a secondary problem to the one you're trying to fix so storage is definitely part of the toolkit but it's not a panacea by a long chalk yeah David did you want to come in on that one? Yeah I think just to add to that it's just to reiterate something that Chris highlighted within his quick presentation the way that we try to position these power finders is by articulating what our requirement is we are solution neutral we try to be as much as we can so we say what we need then we look for expressions of interest from the market to understand what technologies, what solutions are out there and then we will look to assess each of those, can they provide the services that we require and then we'll be through to a commercial assessment of those so if there are solutions that individuals think are out there that we should be looking at then by all means you should be engaging with us through these processes so we can understand what the art of the possible is solutions that's why we're very keen to work with the industry and partners to bring these new solutions like Welsh power, like reactor technologies is it right to add something as well I mean just to reiterate I think that point about solution neutral requirements is so important just because we're building a synchronous condenser coupled with a flywheel in south Wales don't think that is the only way we're fulfilling national grids requirements there are increasingly other ways and if we think a nursery is fairly niche you can get onto some really niche stuff once you start talking about dynamic voltage stability and things like that but there are plenty of solutions out there that you can buy for different requirements so if national grid what you think slightly more towards short circuit current or potentially in future dynamic voltage support solutions that the market may bring forward may be different but those solutions are out there and I think as an independent power provider or a developer like us we would try and stay solution neutral as well in that and pick the right one for the requirements Thank you Thank you very much for that okay next on the list we've got Fernando having another little go here and he's been a bit controversial in saying that companies like Air Grid and Sony and Island are ahead of national grid well I have no idea who's ahead of who but all I'm hearing is a lot of positivity between our panel members here and national grid actually explaining that this is new ground that we're breaking and I haven't noticed the lights going off very much lately so well done to everyone I don't know if you want to come back on that panel members it's up to you whether you want to pick up on this question I don't mind or David if you want to go No you carry on Mark alright well yeah I mean we know Air Grid and Sony quite well and they have really ambitious renewable energy targets I mean I think it's 75% of non-synchronous generation connected on their grid by 2030 or something I mean it's a really really ambitious target and as a result of that and I think the nature of the Irish system which is a lot smaller than the UK one or the GB one that the National Grid look after they have had to forge and come up with I would say also innovative service requirements what I would say is the big difference is that with National Grid by actually measuring the problem knowing the problem, quantifying it in a real time way National Grid have a better chance of buying the right services and making sure those services are the most effective both cost effectively and impact on the on the actual problem that they can have so I would still say that from visibility and from a measure of the problem and make sure the solutions really fit and work I would still say National Grid are at the forefront absolutely. Thank you and I guess I would just to prove my parents worth of that you know we are clearly tackling some really meaty challenges but these are not unique to ourselves as the GB so that's one reason why recently you may have picked this up we launched a program called Global Power Systems Transformation Consortium and that's really a group of some of the leading TSOs who are looking to resolve some of these challenges globally and we spend a lot of time talking bilaterally to other TSOs we don't have all the solutions we're ahead in some areas and sure we're behind in others the key for us is to learn from other system operators we are the only one in the UK so we have to look to collaborate where we can and learn from best practice as well as help others learn from ourselves Thank you Okay we've got Roger Hollies who has another question here and he asks will National Grid be making the reactive inertia data public? He's looking forward to staring at a screen for as long as it takes to see an opportunity to help his business may think from the way he's posed that question so how can we help Roger? So I think to answer that one bluntly that's something we'll certainly look at I think what we're trying to do hopefully many of those on the call we're really looking to ramp up where we can the transparency of our operational data making sure that it's out there so the best solutions can come to the fore this is clearly one of those areas where we need to consider what's appropriate and right and possible to put it out there Thank you, well that would be very helpful and there are a lot of people out there who really do enjoy studying things like that and you know if it's going to help us all and help their businesses identify that would be good okay we've got a question here from Ross McLaughlin there's approximately 4 gigawatt of new pump storage hydro proposals in the UK that's wonderful news for me to hear I do like some pumped hydro best party I ever went to was inside a power station inside a mountain got to be in with the in-crowd anyway so all this pumped storage is due to come on that can provide a full suite of stability services as well as a long term storage to help balance renewables these projects can be operational by 2030 with the appropriate support and would Alexander have a view oh is Alexander still with us a view on this from a base perspective have we got Alexander with us does anyone know are you there he's not there right well we'll make sure that he knows that question was posed and perhaps Josh if there's some feedback afterwards we can find a way of circulating that so Barbara I've got a thought on that I mean I think it is a very I think it is a very valid point and and it's sort of and I'm just thinking aloud here and this isn't particularly my bag but if you're talking about renewables procurement rounds as well we are talking about a difference between the value of something that provides stability services inherently to take a biomass generator for instance I'm you know I'm solution neutral in kind of renewable terms but that biomass generator is synchronized has inertia contributes more short circuit level in the equivalent megawatts of or the equivalent amount of energy that you get from a say a wind farm or a solar farm for that matter so I think there is something to think about there I don't know the answer but yeah it's I think there is a there is an unlevel playing field if you're just competing on megawatts because the stuff that you don't talk about stability short circuit inertia is gets forgotten about and not valued yeah yeah thank you that's helpful okay so we have one last question and it is from oh we've got another one just sneaking in there so Tom would like to ask reactive and do reactive see any locational differences across the UK in their inertia measurements and how does the DC link change the inertia level good question so I think the short answer is yes I mean although we're giving national grade the sort of aggregate national view we can go more granular and we can start to see you know differing regions having differing inertia levels and again that's not just a UK specific thing that would be any any power system well DC links obviously with the DC connection don't really play a big part in inertia but they obviously play a part in the power imbalance and you know when an interconnector suddenly goes down there's suddenly a change to the system which then more plays out I guess in the frequency impact potentially so I think from our perspective it's just another component of the overall system that our measurements would take into account but I guess it would more come into that really operation and maybe the kind of thing that in the control room you would bid the interconnector down or whatever to just manage whatever the inertia level is on the system at that time to mitigate for the largest loss perhaps that would perhaps be more relevant under David yeah David have you anything to add no I think Mark covered it really cool okay and then we have the question from Morgan directed to Chris and it's very specific to the project that you're undertaking Chris so I don't know what you can answer on this one it's about how you're getting on with the with WPD and how are they connecting your project to the network if that's what you feel you need to yeah I might not say too much but I mean it seems to be in the business of dishing out praise but you know WPD DNOs generally are quite big slow moving beasts in my experience and most proud of the experience of dealing with lots of DNOs including WPD and again to their credit this is very very innovative for them it's very very innovative for the whole of the UK and they are working very closely with us which is fantastic it's great that they were even open to the idea of connecting something that's never been connected to the transmission system in the UK let alone the distribution network yeah well done so I'm thinking that all of their colleagues are watching and waiting to see how this pans out as is the rest of the industry you know one good look to all of you it might not be smooth sailing but you know you'll get there in the end because that's what we do don't we we make it work yeah and then there's a final question from Frazier which is in terms of 5 megawatt injection into the network how frequently is this done to achieve the desired resolution for the measurement I guess that's coming to you Mark is it or David yes to your to take well it's really driven by it's really driven by how frequently national grid want the measurement so typically the duty cycle will be around a measurement every five minutes so it's a function of what resolution we need to deliver determines how often the megawatts are pushed into the network yeah all right thank you I would like to thank all of our panellists honestly I've learned something new from all of this which is absolutely great thank you ever so much to who popped a question on me because it's filled in 20 minutes or so and there were very good questions and we've lost our MPs had to go off to vote and we'll make sure that he sees that question that was directed to him and also I hope we can circulate the slides from the presentations to if any questions current we'll deal with those as well Josh did you have some things to add just before we sign off yeah just a couple of things from me just like Alexander deflectors before they might have to go and vote so I think the process takes a little bit longer nowadays than it used to with social distancing in the house because he's actually in Parliament today so I guess that's my side point of view is we've heard about how reactive data informs National Grid ESO's decisions on when to dispatch solutions like Welsh Power I think that would summarise the panel's conversation I've certainly found it really interesting I hope everyone else has too I also particularly like Chris's line on that we can build all the renewables you want which I think is music the years of our friends in the generation as well to close off my side of things and to reiterate my earlier points we've got the next of these events during January which is just tying up the final date on that on domestic flexibility and our big annual conference the energy network conversation place in December details of both those will be in the email that will send round to you all after this event and thank you all for joining yeah thank you for organising this Josh you've done a grand job thank you once again thank you once again to our speakers as well it's been really really interesting thank you you're welcome thank you