Creates green solutions for the energy market of the future

How can a power company supply enough electricity to industry and inhabitants when the power grid capacity is strained, and the amount of electricity required fluctuates from day to day? 

How can a power company supply enough electricity to industry and inhabitants when the power grid capacity is strained, and the amount of electricity required fluctuates from day to day? EY Skye has worked in collaboration with Haugaland Kraft Nett to develop smart solutions that will supply power for growth and well-being among municipalities located in Western Norway.

Power to the people

Haugaland Kraft Nett supplies power to 150,000 inhabitants. People and industry located in the 12 municipalities in Haugaland, Sunnhordland and Ryfylke must be able to turn on their washing machines and coffee makers, round the clock, whenever they like. Electric vehicles must be charged, and schools heated up. New industry is necessary to create jobs for the locals. This requires additional power, and if the grid does not have the capacity for this, then further expansions will be very costly.

These were some of the challenges Haugland Kraft Nett faced when they contacted EY Skye in 2019:

A 17 kilometre submarine power cable has provided power to the island of Utsira for decades. However, the cable has a low capacity, and the island is experiencing a growing need for power. The power grid was very strained and many power customers experienced significant power fluctuations. A new aquaculture facility was also planned, which would have doubled the power needed on the island. But a new submarine power cable with better capacity is expensive. The cost was estimated at NOK 40 million.
Haugaland Kraft Nett chose to rethink things and to collaborate with EY Skye to seek other solutions. The distribution network operator was sitting on a large amount of data that could be used for something sensible. All households have smart electricity metres that continuously send in data. They provide a good overview of the current grid load, where grounding faults are located and where alarms are sounded. The electrical substations have sensors that measure temperatures, or whether doors are locked or open.

Access to weather data also provides an overview of future prognoses for both power consumption and production. If the sun is shining, then all the solar panels in the area will produce electricity, so the power company will need to supply less electricity and, in this case, the challenge might be that voltage levels at the end customer become too high. If it becomes cold outside, people turn up the heat and the need for electricity increases, which can quickly lead to the customer experiencing low voltage in their power outlet.

New way of using power data

“The first part of the project involved gathering all the data. We have created a system that will detect and prevent power challenges in the local parts of the grid,” explains Geir Inge Imsland, Senior Solution Architect at EY Skye. From his home office in Stord, Imsland and his colleague Øystein Løken, a data scientist, developed several machine learning models for Haugaland Kraft Nett that predict electricity consumption and electricity grid load. Colleague Petter Thorsen, who worked from Tønsberg, was also part of the team.

This is how Haugland Kraft Nett has gained a full overview of the voltage in all parts of the grid, both now and shortly into the future. However, this is only half of the solution. The information is also used to even out the pressure on the grid. The goal is for local electricity production to be adapted to consumption and vice versa. Consumption can increase when charging an electric vehicle or charging local stocks when grid voltage is predicted to be high. Alternatively, production from other local suppliers must decrease.

Developed local power exchange

Using a trading robot developed by EY Skye, Haugaland Kraft Nett can now offer its local customers flexibility through a flexibility marketplace. During the pilot phase, the NODES marketplace is being used and EY Skye has supplied all software on the distribution network operator side of the marketplace.

“They conduct buying and selling of flexibility according to what the models predict the status will be in future. If the model shows that the grid will have low voltage for six hours, then it can place a purchase order on the market. You then pay people not to use electricity or you can pay people to supply electricity via solar panels or batteries,” explains Løken.

Electricity customers choose whether they wish to be part of the flexibility marketplace through their electricity supplier’s marketplace for buying and selling electricity. They can be told to use or not to use electricity at various times of the day, including charging or not charging their electric vehicle, turning on or off solar panels or hot water heaters. This is automatically regulated so customers don’t need to do anything at all. Smaller customers do not notice the electricity regulation much, but larger customers, such as public institutions, may benefit from adjusting their consumption, such as turning down the heat at various times of the day in line with Haugland Kraft Netts needs.

Grid voltage that too high and too low can be problematic for customers. Voltage that is too low can cause electrical devices not to work at all. Voltage that is too high can destroy electrical devices.
Therefore, producing too much electricity in periods with clear weather can also be a problem, because this causes grid voltage to increase.

- The solution makes it better for subscribers, no matter where in the district they are. The system can also be used whenever the distribution network operator sees the need,” he says.

Haugland Kraft Nett’s trading robot is developed together with EY Skye and, from a Norwegian perspective, is unique. Large scale flexibility markets are well known but there are few initiatives where private customers are included.

The distribution network operator’s new solutions could result in a far more stable power supply for the inhabitants of Haugaland, Sunnhordland and Ryfylke. Haugaland Kraft Nett wants to save investment costs.

With all the projects the distribution network operator does on Utsira, it is uncertain whether investing in a new submarine power cable is something that should be done, and the NOK 40 million investment can be avoided or postponed for quite some time.

Imsland and Løken believe that the innovative solution for Haugaland Kraft Nett is simply the start of something that will become gradually more common for optimising the electricity market.

“This is an issue we will also see more and more of, as people have more things at home that use more power and people get solar panels that produce power. It’s about balancing this as well as we can,” says Geir Inge Imsland.

He and colleague Øystein Løken are proud of having been part of this innovative product for modern energy management.