Next Generation Energy Management - Reactive Technologies reinvents smart grid communication

‘Dynamic’ isn’t perhaps a word often associated with the way the energy industry has operated in the past ­– until recently that is. Things are changing, and changing fast. With technological advances, many industries evolve over time, traditional business models are more and more disrupted. The time is now for the energy industry as we’re about to enter a smart energy revolution with smart grid technologies poised to play an increasingly important role in our future energy systems.

The traditional approach to ensure the lights remain on has been for centralised fossil fuel-powered generation plants to produce and supply electricity to meet the continuous rise and fall in demand from industrial, commercial and domestic consumers.

This conventional model of ‘supply-side’ flexibility is not only expensive, but also harmful to the environment. Legally-binding carbon reduction targets require the adoption of a low-carbon approach towards meeting the energy needs of society.

New ways of providing flexibility from the ‘demand-side’ are emerging with the rapid growth of distributed generation, such as solar PV, energy storage and demand-side management services. Companies are finding innovative ways to make the most out of existing infrastructure and electrical assets, helping to remove the cost of operating and maintaining the energy system, while generating new revenue streams. 

At Reactive Technologies, we are drawing upon our heritage in mass communications engineering to come up with fresh approaches to address some of the challenges that exist in the energy space. We’re bringing skills and expertise from the telecoms sector and transferring this knowledge to the energy industry to develop intelligent energy management services for our customers. Incredible advances in information and communications technology are driving a number of ‘mega trends’ in the energy industry, such as decentralisation, digitalisation and decarbonisation, and we are surfing on them.

Earlier this year, we successfully completed a demonstrator project with National Grid and SSE to prove how the frequency of our existing electricity network could be used to carry data to connected devices across the length and breadth of the country. We called this technology Grid Data and Measurement System (GDMS) and recently announced this world-first technology breakthrough to the world. The ground breaking result was that we were able to show for the first time how data messages can be sent through an entire national transmission and distribution grid over long distances and through network transformers.

The way GDMS works is that connected devices send and receive data across the electricity network through minute and subtle changes made to the grid frequency by modulating the power consumption of transmitting devices. These “on” and “off” or frequency changes create a unique code. Receivers, embedded in the plugs of devices, such as freezers, hot water tanks and air conditioning equipment, are programmed to detect these frequency changes. Receiving devices then identify and decode the messages, which automatically tell the device to carry out a particular instruction, for example, to turn down or turn off according to a schedule or based on grid frequency changes, the firm said. GDMS allows for faster, automated responses from assets so they can be used for higher value, system-critical, load balancing services like frequency response or inertia management, it added.

Why is this important? GDMS will allow the energy consumption of millions of connected devices to be measured and controlled, leading to a wealth of insightful data and operational opportunities. Furthermore, it will increase access to Demand-Side Response (DSR) programmes for both commercial and residential customers. 

It will be possible, in the future, to communicate with millions of receiver devices and aggregate information, regardless of their physical location. This offers an entirely unique method of communicating with devices that are plugged in anywhere to the electricity network, independent of the internet or mobile telecommunications networks.

A further benefit of GDMS is that it doesn’t require any new communications infrastructure to be built. For sites with no internet connection it is more cost effective than creating a new one and enables a means of communication where none existed before, allowing assets to be enrolled into wider DSR programmes, and opens up the residential market.

We anticipate that the data obtained via GDMS will provide insight into the behaviour of complex energy networks and smart grids, creating intelligence that can be invested in further innovation, and in developing new social and business models that drive the digital revolution and energy transformation that is already well underway. This will help transmission and network operators improve reliability and security on their networks. Consumers will also benefit as cost savings are passed on by the improvement of more accurate forecasting models and the purchase of energy reserves.

This is a particularly exciting time for Reactive Technologies as we announce news of our technology innovations, partnerships with utilities and national grid operators and sign new customers for our DSR services. There is no doubt that change is at hand. It’s not a question of whether the smart grid revolution will happen, but when and how quickly. 

Jens Madrian, CFO and CCO, Reactive Technologies