Low carbon pilot from North East gets national attention

North East electricity distributor Northern Powergrid showcased early findings from its innovative low carbon project to over 650 politicians and industry experts a national energy conference recently.

The Customer-Led Network Revolution (CLNR) is the largest project of its type in the UK and senior executives from Northern Powergrid and project partners Durham University, British Gas and EA Technology shared some of the project’s initial outcomes at the annual Low Carbon Networks (LCN) Fund conference in Brighton.

Delegates heard how more than 12,000 customers from the North East and Yorkshire had signed up to a range of CLNR trials, studying electricity usage and low carbon technologies like solar panels and electric vehicles.

The learning from these trials will help the electricity sector make the changes needed for these new technologies to be widely adopted in the UK.

Dr Liz Sidebotham from Northern Powergrid, said: “The LCN Fund conference is an event that celebrates some of the best energy innovation in the UK and we were very proud to represent the Northeast region through our work on the CLNR project.

“The UK’s current electrical grid needs to evolve into a ‘smart grid’ in order to meet the demands of a low carbon future, and people from across the UK’s energy industry come to this conference to hear the latest thinking and share best practice on how we can achieve this.

“As part of the CLNR project, we’re trialling a range of innovative technology to help us create smart grid solutions. But what makes this project particularly interesting is that we’re also monitoring the way in which customers use electricity and testing new concepts like time-of-use tariffs to see whether, and to what extent, they are willing to change their energy consumption and behaviour.

“This is putting customers in the Northeast at the heart of our research, helping us to uncover solutions that will deliver a low carbon future that is affordable for customers and maintains a secure supply of energy.”