31 - Diving into DNOs with Sotiris Georgiopoulos (Head of Smart Grid Development @ UK Power Networks)

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OK, hello.

Hi, Quentin.

Thanks for coming on the podcast. Firstly, to anybody who's listening, this is the first time this has happened. We can hear rain in the background. It's quite romantic. It's a bit like whale noises or whatever. So, if you're listening to this with headphones and you're falling asleep, then I guess we're in a new category of podcast. Thanks for coming on the podcast, Sotiris.

Delighted to be here.

And today--

we're quite excited about today's podcast, because it's the first time we're going to go deep with a DNO.

And this is a bit of the energy sector that we haven't really covered before.

And who better to have on than you. Firstly, what do you do at which DNO?

Yes, so I work for UK power networks, which is the distribution network operator for London.

Southeast all the way down to Brighton, and then the East of England or East Anglia. So we serve the bottom right corner of the country, and it's about 20 million customers. We take electricity from National Grid, and we take it to business and homes in that part of the world.

James Johnson of Piccolo always says the motorways of the National Grid--

the big high voltage up to 400 kilovolt system--

and then the A roads and B roads, the smaller roads, are the distribution network, and that's what you guys look after.

Absolutely loads of substations. Lots of cables in the ground and some overhead lines. Lots of assets to manage and make sure that they keep running so we can use the power that we need in our homes and businesses.

Yeah, that's it. So some of them are on the top--

is a small transformer, or a small gray box on top of a wooden pole.

Some of them are in the corner of a street, or in a building. So it's 120,000 distribution points, if you like, where we bring cables and then the cables go through the streets into people's homes.

It's a important point, though, actually, which are pole mounted transformers. So halfway up a pole, you can sometimes see a transformer 5 to 10 meters above our heads. And that is technically a substation that's doing something.

It is, yes. It is a substation. Our main remit is to keep the lights on. So we'll develop, build, and operate the network, but really from a customer's perspective, the main outcome is we keep the lights on. So that's what you experience. And for that service, you pay an annual fee that is charged through your retail bill, or your energy bill you receive.

So there's a line item on my electricity bill that covers the cost of you guys making sure that bit of the network is running, and you keep the lights on. And I guess what's interesting about distribution network operators, and we'll talk about it in a minute, is for pretty much all of history, the job of a distribution network operator has been to get the power from the really high voltage part of the grid the National Grid bit, and deliver it to people. And the power goes one way. So it goes from the big coal power stations to the National Grid, to the distribution network, and then to people's homes or businesses.

And what's happening over the last couple of decades, and certainly the future looks this way too, is it's turning out to be more of a directional system where you've got to have generation. You have solar. You've got to have batteries. All these complicated things to manage.

And that is a big, big technical problem to solve that you guys are trying to solve at the moment.

Yeah, and if you look at this at macro level, currently, the peak demand for our part of the country is about 14, 15 gigawatts. A winter peak demand.

That's like a third of all demand.

It is a third of all demand. We've got pretty much for UKPN, the rule of thumb we use, we are a third.

A third of the customers, a third of the demand, a third of the megawatt hour is going through the system. And if you go back 10 years in 2010, and we look at the peak demand compared to the installed capacity of generation connected to our network. So if I take you back to 2010, in 2010, we probably had about maybe three gigawatts of installed generation on our network, and half of it was maybe the four big power stations in King's Lynn, Peterborough, Soram.

And that had been held have been generation or developed over 20 years, so a number of landfill sites some industrial stuff. And then you go to 2010, and by the way, no domestic in 2010.

So houses were just sucking energy, they weren't producing anything at the time.

Absolutely. And then you go to that period, the solar boom that we all know about between 2010 and 2015--

I wish I was involved in that.

That's crazy time.

You hear the stories.

So for us what happened, we pretty much for a period of three or four years, we saw a gigawatt of additional generation operational on our network. Primarily solar, but there was wind as well. So we went from three gigawatts to eight gigawatts over the course of 2010 to 2016, and we went from 0 domestic generators connected on the networks about 100 and, I think, 180,000 which is solar panels on the roofs. So that's when this vision of a bi-directional distribute generation connected at low voltage. Multi lower levels. Quite close to demand starts becoming reality. Where we stand today, we've got 10 gigawatts of installed capacity in our networks connected on the distribution network.

Generation?

Yes. It's generates a little bit of battery storage, yes.

OK, so some rough numbers here. So about 15 gigawatts of peak demand in the very cold and wet winter.

Probably a couple of Wednesdays after Christmas, something like that.

And so 15 gigs of peak demand, so you need a network that can handle that kind of power. But you've also got 10 gigs coming back on to the grid, distributed across everything from a little couple of kilowatts on someone's rooftop solar, all the way to Kingsland power station.

Absolutely, yeah.

And certainly the last decade, decade and a half, the business has had to transform to doing a lot more complicated stuff with an electricity distribution network that was never designed for this. That's the thing we've got to remember.

DNO's get a lot of--

to be frank, DNO's get a lot of stick for being slow, right? And we've got to remember that the reason why a lot of this is taking the time that it does is because, a, we've got to keep the lights on, and b, we're trying to fudge a system that was never designed for this.

Yeah. Yeah, yeah.

You've got to understand, we operate national critical infrastructure, which for very good reasons has lots of rules and regulations around it. And all of those rules and regulations probably take you back to a mistake, or in the case of safety and an accident. So they were there for a good purpose. So the journey we've been over the last 10 years is to challenge all of that and try to adapt them to what we need today. Because in some cases, the connections piece, or the solar boom was a good example.

I remember back in 2010, we probably had a very small team of a handful of engineers looking at connections projects for distribute generation, now it's our main activity. So we had to resource up. We had to create processes that deal with a volume. We had to digitize some of our interactions so we have much better digital mapping tools, and heat maps, and information provision to allow developers primarily, and operators to some extent self-serve.

And that's an ongoing journey. It's as much as, my experience has been, yes, the technical aspects need to be addressed, but there's this whole piece about the people and the culture and the change that really gets you a lot of the gains and the benefits.

Yeah, there's a huge human aspect to this as well, and a skills and competency aspect.

So we're going to talk about the DNO to the DSO transition in a minute. But before we get there for the people who are listening or watching, can you explain how a DNO makes money?

So you are a regulated entity, right?

There are certain things you're measured against. So how does that work? What's the business model of a DNO?

Yeah, so the DNOs are regulated by Ofgem. So Ofgem sets the revenues that we can make, and they do this now on a five year basis.

So our prices essentially are published on an annual basis, but reflect what is the agreement with Ofgem, that for the next, what we call price control, is going to be set is being set, has been negotiated as we speak, and it will go live on the 1st of April 2023. So 2023 to 2028 is going to be the next price control for us. So essentially what happens, there is a charge that is being recovered from houses and so an average for the UK area is 90 pounds per annum for the use of distribution network. So you and I, if you live in the UK area, certainly I do.

So 90 pounds of my energy bill is going towards my DNO to keep those wires running.

Absolutely. This is being recovered through the retailer, the supplier, from you, and then we charge the suppliers for the use of the system. So people refer to the distribution use of system, or the juice. So this is what it is, the charge you pay to use a system to transport essentially your energy from points.

So my supplier, whether that's British gas or whatever, recovers that money from me and my electricity bill, and then they pass it on to the DNO, and depending on where you are in the country, you have a different DNO.

If you're in the Southeast, the money might go to UKPN, or if you're in the West, it might be Western power distribution, and some other names that people will know. All right. And the amount of money you can charge for that stuff is settled by Ofgem.

Yes, so it's a regulated tariff that has been pre-agreed, if you like, with Ofgem.

OK.

Let's talk about the DSO thing. What is that, and what needs to happen to get there?

Or actually, does UKPN consider itself a DSO already? Let's define it first.

Actually at UKPN, we are in the process, and that's most of my day job these days of setting up the DSO as a separate company within the UKPN group. So come 1st of April 2023, we are going to have an entity which is going to be the DSO, and that's where we are going to carry out all this activity from.

OK, what's a DNO and what's a DSO? Let's do that first.

OK, taking a step back, historically--

an electricity infrastructure has been around for 150 years or so, but historically the business of an electricity distributor is to provide capacity where it's needed. So if you have a new business and you need the capacity, we have a legal duty to provide a connection, and that means that you can use capacity, the capacity on the network. And up to very recently that capacity has been almost all the time being provided by infrastructure, which is just through cables and transformers and all this electrical.

So build more stuff. Build more cables, put more of a headlines in, more transformers. Let's just get everyone connected and put more copper in the system.

Absolutely, absolutely. Now that we are in a world where as I mentioned, we've got 10 gigawatts of installed generation that can flex, so some of it is flexible generation. And we are also in a world where we are seeing more flexible demand coming into the system. Things like electric vehicles, for example. There is a new opportunity that is opening up for us in the context of flexibility, whereby flexing some of that generation up and down, we can create capacity on the network.

When we say flexing up and down, what's an example of that?

An example would be an electric vehicle where we would enter into a commercial agreement through a third party, through an aggregator and retailer with a bunch of customers. And as part of a commercial agreement, the customers would be incentivized to not charge a specific times that contribute to a grid constraint, or would mean that we are getting the capacity of the network.

Typically, on a winter peak. So that would be an example. Another example would be a battery contracting to import or export the specific times, or a gas peaker would fall under the same category.

So it's a step change in thinking, which is saying, to get more capacity on the network, rather than building more stuff, let's take what we've already got--

and it might be that substation x--

So we're in Houston in London here, right? So there might be a substation in Houston.

There's probably not much capacity there, right? But let's say, for example, substation Houston evening tea time, 7 PM in winter, it's a full capacity. But overnight, it might have only 20% capacity. The idea is instead of putting more copper and more transformers, you can say let's use that existing infrastructure, but shift the way that people use it and encourage them to do it. Is that right?

Absolutely, yes.

You're looking at the flexibility as an additional toolkit, basically, and you are trying to use that flexibility to see how you can maximize the utilization, as you said, of the existing network, and the capacity. So this is probably the most fundamental. When we talk about the DNO and DSO, in my mind, this is the most fundamental shift, because it's a very different way of thinking. It has a very different profile. It involves something you can't see, traditionally, historically, the DNA has been in control of the assets that uses to meet its needs. Well, now you are entering into commercial contracts with third parties that you have no control of.

They might not be as mature as you are used to, and there's a whole bunch of uncertainties around whether how reliable they are. So it's a much different proposition, but the fundamental thing is that it can be a lower cost proposition. And I think that's really what is driving this debate certainly from a UKPN perspective. What's in it for the customers is that a combination of infrastructure and flexibility at the end of the day, it might be a lower cost pathway to a more electrified system, rather than just the infrastructure.

So that's really what then becomes into the DSOs remit is, to make sure that this flexibility solution, these flexible products and markets are designed and procured, sourced and the network is planned taking into account these options.

And then one thing we haven't actually covered yet is the word "difference", right? so distribution network operator is a DNO. That's the old way of doing it. And the DSO is distribution system operator.

I'm sure there's parallels with how National Grid does it, which is where you have National Grid electricity transmission, ET, who look after the wires and overhead lines and the transformers, and then you have National Grid electricity system operator who manage the system, and do the frequency response stuff, and balancing mechanism, all that good stuff. So now we've defined the difference between a DSO and a DSO, when will the DNOs become DSOs? Are they already saying that they are?

At what point can we say that we're there? We're making this dream a reality.

For a while we talked about the transition of DNOs to the DSO. I mean, this debate has been going on for about five years. So we talked about the DNOs will transition to DSOs. I think where we are getting is that there's a set of DSO activities that are distinct to DNO activities, and instead of having a DNO becoming a DSO, as I said from next year we are going to have a DSO, in the UKPN group, and we're going to have a DNO.

So it's not one or the other, you're going to split and do both. Or add another things.

In a similar fashion to the electricity transmission and the electricity system operator. So in the DSO part of the business, you will have things like future energy scenarios. You'll have things like forecasting of what capacity is required where, and all the necessary data that supported and publishing that data. You will have the option around do we use flexibility, or do we use infrastructure. And you also have in the control room a bunch of people that their sole purpose is to make sure that if we have a flexibility contract is actually utilized. And all of these interactions between DNO, DSO, electricity system operator are being managed.

OK, makes sense.

So let's talk about technology for a second. So how are you actually doing it?

We had Piccolo on the podcast. Piccolo, a company that we most people pretty well, and really flew the flag, if you like, for DSO stuff, and marketplaces in the first place. So shout out to them in general. But what kind of systems and technologies are you using to manage this? Piccolo's one of them, but what else are you guys using?

Yeah, so Piccolo is the technology we use when it comes to flexibility procurement. And so back in 2018, we were actually the first adopters or code developers of the Piccolo platform in the initial base trial. And essentially what we wanted to do is to say, OK, the flexibility, the way we need to buy flexibility is very different to the way we buy other type of stuff. Transformers, or pencils, or whatever.

So let's try to do something different. That collaboration with James, and that's where it's going. And we want to double down on flexibility platforms as part of our strategy, because we think it will give us the opportunity to essentially reduce the cost of participation, so increase participation, essentially. Make it easier for providers, but also under the right conditions have a role in essentially coordinating some of those aspects of what is otherwise can be quite a fragmented space.

So we use pickle on the market platform. And other areas of technology we've done a lot of work lately with different types of analytics and data analytics, and the problems really we focused is how can we get better understanding of the utilization of the street level network, where generally we have limited data.

So the street level network isn't senorized that never needed to be. That's really the reason.

Why it's not sensorized.

The smart metering data access we have is quite limiting compared to being able to access--

we can only get aggregate data. And the cost of actually just putting sensors out on the network is prohibitive.

So there's a big piece of work to understand the network that you guys already operate. Because I imagine apart from--

you must have work off drawings or on paper in some cases, but apart from old drawings from years ago, you may not have the data on the performance of the system, and even where it is, let alone how it's performing. There's a fact finding mission to do first.

Yeah, and most of the records have been digitized, in terms of where things are and what they are. I think the main question for us is how much electricity is going through them at any given time. Can we actually predict when a street level substation, or a pole substation gets close to its capacity, because that street is taking up electric vehicles, and we can see the electric vehicle take up happening. So there's a lot of work on analytics, and then the other big piece of work we've been doing is around what people call the distributed energy resource management system that control systems, basically.

DERMS, which is probably the worst acronym that we have in our industry. Derms. Derms, derms, derms. How many times you say derms, it doesn't feel better.

Yes, we've got a lot of terrible acronyms. I'm trying really hard not to--

Distributed energy resource management systems. OK.

Control systems, basically. It's got some sort of algorithm that looks at something and sends an action. We've used them to--

as an overlay on our traditional control systems to really look at the power flow on the network and where we see flow approaching limits that we have said, then sending instructions to curtail specific generators. We signed up on essentially on a flexible basis, or in a curtailable basis.

So this stuff is the measurement, it's the alarms, it's the dispatch, it's the control, it's the switch on the generator, switch it off. It's the whole--

it's almost the Digital Network that makes that stuff happen, right?

Absolutely. I think a lot of this relies on having good and complete data. So with all of that type of deployment, you end up going into making sure that your models are accurate and your data. And as you mentioned before, there's a lot of background work that has to be done to start enabling some of these systems.

We jumped over it at the beginning, so how big is UKPN in people?

5 and 1/2 thousand people.

5 and 1/2 thousand people. And what proportion of those is out in vans fixing stuff?

The majority, I think. You're probably looking over 4,000 people, 4 and 1/2 thousand people. The majority of the companies out on a daily basis, making sure that the lights go back on as quickly as possible if they go out, or constructing something, or building something, or maintaining a piece of network.

So we are battery people, right? And everything always comes back to batteries. My first question, and this is like the Ask a Question like you're a five-year-old thing, would be--

OK, so context of this, is one of the biggest, if not the biggest problem to us building battery energy storage at the rate at which we need to build renewables at the rate we need to--

joined bit of logic there, but you get where I'm going. One of the biggest problems and barriers to that is connections, at the moment.

And just to set the scene, there's an awful lot of battery connection applications. So batteries that have got planning permission who are ready to go, who want to connect to the distribution network, and can't yet, or can't in the way that they want to. So the distribution network might say, you can connect, but only for a few hours a day you might be curtailed. Or you can't connect at all, or you can connect in 2026 when we've spoken to the National Grid and then the statement of works process. So it's all these little barriers that come up. And so back to the Ask a Question like I'm a five-year-old question, what is so tricky about connecting batteries to the distribution network?

I don't think connecting batteries the distribution network is tricky in itself.

I think what you need to see is that demand for connection in specific areas. And I'll use the East of England, I think, is a good example for us. So, East of England, we've got--

the winter peak is 5.4 gigawatts, 5.5 gigawatts. The installed capacity, currently, is 5.5 gigawatts. And the contracted pipeline that we have for East of England is 10 gigawatts.

Whoa, let's do those numbers again. So 5.6 gigawatts of peak demand. And there's 5.5 gigawatts of network infrastructure. Is that right?

No, that's installed capacity of existing generation.

Installed capacity of existing generation. Right. And then we've got 10 gigs of generation and batteries waiting to connect.

So what we have seen happening over the last few years is that--

so between 2010 and 2015, you had a huge amount of interest for connections, but you were also building and connecting a lot. What has happened--

then we had a bit of a slow period, I think.

Because everyone rushed for the feed in tariff, and for solar.

Yeah, and after 2016, the ban on onshore wind, all of that stuff. So there was kind of a period between 2016-2019 not much happened. And then what seems to have happened since 2019 or 2020, we have a huge resurgence in the interest.

We've basically contracted six gigawatts in the last three years.

This is not just batteries, I can give you the numbers for batteries. But what we are seeing is that there is a lot of contracted capacity, but there isn't an equal rate of converting into operational projects. So the rate of operational project conversion, or actual things happening on the ground has slowed down significantly. So one of the things that we are now looking--

Well, what does that mean? Just to break that down. So that means that the applications for connections are--

there's way more applications going in than actual assets getting built.

Yes.

We have record levels of applications almost every year for the last three or four years.

That's the first thing. We have record levels of acceptances of offers that actually being accepted.

So this is UK power networks accepting a person's application to build an asset. We've got record levels of applications, and the DNO accepting them.

Exactly, the customer acceptance.

We make an offer and what we typically say, we say, look, to connect on that part of the network, that's the cost associated. And over one of the main pieces of my work over the last 10 years has been to develop a flexible connection product offering.

So we basically say, well, there's a cost for reinforcing the network but there's a flexible option, so you have a couple of options.

And then the customer essentially decides what they want to do. And if they like it, they accept it. If not, they let it lapse.

And when we say flexible, it has been known as active network management style connections, where you can say we build a battery and we connect to UK power networks. They can say, right, it's going to cost you. It's a big battery it's going to cost you a million pounds to connect. We've got to build a load of stuff.

But if you connect in this way, sometimes in the future, we might have to switch you off of the networks at capacity, and so it's a flexible connection. So that's what we mean by flexibility. Just to make it clear to the listener.

I think the point is that we have a huge amount of accepted offers, but actually we don't have a big conversion rate. So we've got a big contracted queue that now contributes to some of the issues we are seeing on the transmission network, which essentially, when you take into account all of these accepted offers into assessing the transmission--

so we're also agreed, DSO and ET doing their assessments, essentially you need additional infrastructure in the transmission network to accommodate them.

So just going to break this down a little bit. So are we saying that because there's so many applications that have gone in, they've been accepted so people have made the first payment, if you like, and they're going to build, but they're not building yet. All of those applications need to be considered by National Grid on the super high voltage--

the motorway part of the network, the transmission network.

And so when they're thinking about how they build their network, they're having to build in all of these--

they're not speculative applications, because they're going to get built, but they're still not actually built yet.

We've got a whole load of paperwork which is holding up the system. Is that right?

Yeah, so one of the things we are currently doing is trying to see what is a more pragmatic way of managing that queue effectively. So if you have a planning permission, and if you are ready to go, then you get the connection. Nothing is holding you back. One of the things that we're proud of back in the solar boom is that anyone who needed and was ready to connect, they got connected by the right date.

From our perspective, I think we want to make sure that every project that is ready, we absolutely facilitate it, but obviously there's a set of rules that need to be followed. So one of the things we are currently doing is to say, OK, what is it we can do with those rules that doesn't disadvantage everyone who is in the queue and it's fair, but at the same time, it's pragmatic, in terms of if you are ready, just go basically.

That's key here, right?

Connections are so rules based.

We got this first in first out thing. So the first person the queue gets looked at before the next person, before the next person. And then you have this thing called interactivity and all these other rules based ways, which are rightly so, because it's a regulated market, of making sure that anyone, whether you're joe blogs, or whether you're a footsie company, you get treated fairly in the same, regardless of how much money you've got.

I think that's great as a system. What it does mean is we--

it just feels imperfect at the moment.

I imagine you're looking at gray areas or other areas. How can you how can you work within the rules, but to move stuff along faster?

Yeah, so there are different--

we are working with National Grid across the East of England as a specific focus areas, and there are different things we are trying to do.

One of the things is around the queue. How we can manage the queue more effectively? The other area that we are looking, with regards mostly in the transmission constraints, is how we can perhaps have a set of operating envelopes, particularly for batteries, because we have a lot of batteries in those contracted positions, and those queues. Particularly with batteries to make sure that the batteries can connect on the network, but don't exacerbate the transmission constraints that National Grid might be concerned about.

This is the thing, right? Because a battery--

most assets being built now are to our systems, right? So we build a 50 megawatt two hour system connected to the grid, and we get a we get connection from UK power networks. Well, realistically, that's only going to do say two cycles a day. So let's say it's going to do four hours worth of activity a day, and your day is 24 hours long.

So only one sixth of the time you're using that connection to its full capacity. The rest of the time is--

I know you've got frequency response to other things, but it just means these connections aren't being fully used to their capacity. And then, realistically, a battery makes money by buying cheap and selling high, and so it will be providing generation supporting the network at peak prices, which is exactly when you want it to be providing support to the network.

It's almost common sense that the battery will buy the market design will support the network. It's just it's not guaranteed.

Yeah, you could take could take a risk approach, a value at risk approach to it, if you like, or whatever, but it's an interesting one. The batteries are so--

they're unique in that way, where they don't use the connection all the time, so they're paying for this big connection that I don't use all the time, and the market means that most of the time they'll be providing support to the network.

And it's the same problem we had with solar 10 years ago. So one of the things I did, I ran an innovation project that was called flexible plug and play, and introduced this concept of flexible or controllable connection in the mainland, in an area of near Petersburg. And when we started the project people said, nobody will ever accept a curtailable connection. It was an unheard thing. But then when you look at the solar, and you have a profile of the solar, and you look at the coincidence of a solar profile with a wind profile, you actually realize very quickly that they can use the same infrastructure without necessarily even overlapping with each other. So even the curtailment that you need to do is minimal, but what you've done is in a cable that is rated 10, you now have connected the 10 megawatt wind farm and the 10 megawatt solar farm for a capacity that previously was 10, so you've doubled the hosting capacity.

So I think the same is happening with batteries as the battery market is maturing. The discussions we had with battery developers say three years ago, where I need plus or minus import export 50 megawatts all the time, any time, and, look, if that's what the customer wants, that's what we aim to deliver.

You know what's driving that, right? It was because, and it still is the case, to get a firm frequency response, National Grid insisted that you had a firm connection, that you could provide full response at all times. So even though most of the time you'd be doing, say you've got a 10 megawatt system, most of the time you'd be doing one megawatt or less, right? Every now and again, you might have to provide five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten.

And I can see why the ESO wanted this, because they wanted they wanted to be sure that you were there when you need it. But it meant that you had all this margin of safety being built into the contracts and the connections that was completely out of kilter with what was happening in real life.

Another thing you just mentioned there, so curtailable connections, one thing that bugs me or I often think about is, there's a lot of curtailable connections down South, because of solar, right? Which essentially the DNO, UK power networks and also Western power distribution say, you connect a battery to my DNO network, but in the middle of summer when there's loads of solar on the grid, you can't generate.

I just think that's no biggie, right? You lose a bit of frequency response revenue, but when there's loads of solar, well, the price is going to be low, and you're going to want to import anyway.

It would be odd for a battery to be a generator at that time anyway. So just to comment on that.

And that's exactly that. And so the discussion with the battery developers and the work we are doing now as part of the we call it kind of the jargon is regional development program which is a joint effort between us and National Grid to essentially accelerate connections in the East of England.

And the discussions were having that with the battery participants now are totally totally different discussions we were having three years ago. People are much more open of sharing data, because I think they now understand much better their business models and their operating profiles, and trying to essentially help collectively to find good solutions. So in the East of England, for example, we are looking at that exact type of window rather than just give you a curtailment estimate that you will be curtailed at any time.

Say, look, there's going to be a bit of high input period here where you can't import and it's going to be winter peak, you don't want to import.

And there's going to be a bit of a high export on the solar peak, which you want to export either.

And the plan is to have this window set on a fixed basis initially, and then move them as a day ahead forecast. So we are hoping we are using that forecast, so the batteries can optimize access on the network.

But then the lawyers get involved, right? And they're like, oh, well, if I don't have all the information upfront then how can I build a business case? You've got this massive risk against the business case. I get why they're doing it. And then the whole bloody project falls apart. Excuse, my French.

And these are all practical solutions we are trying to put in place so some of these batteries can connect ahead of the transmission reinforcement in that region. Because the transmission reinforcement dates are 2028-2020.

Awesome. Day ahead curtailment profiles, you heard it here first. Let's do it.

I got time for one more question. And the rain is getting really loud, it's getting incredibly romantic in here. So what about the future of DNOs and DSOs?

What's coming down the line, and what are you excited about? And this is a great example, if you to plug something that you guys are working on.

Over the last 10 years, we've done lots of innovation. We haven't talked about it, but UK power networks built Smart network storage which was--

Oh, yes, Leighton Buzzard.

We should put it on podcast bingo.

Yes.

It's such a beautiful battery. Why is it on legs? Is it flooding?

There's a flooding risk, yeah.

Oh, what an incredible place. They don't build them like that anymore.

We did a lot of innovation, flexible connections, flexibility services, that the debate around the DSO has matured.

Over the next five years, we see electrification of transport. So if you like the main, I wouldn't call them the hot potatoes, but the main exciting areas for us is electrification of transport. How do we keep facilitating electrification without being a barrier basically to our customers?

Are you guys supplying HS2? Are you putting the substations in around Houston? Big, big job there.

So you have lots of demand, lots of infrastructure, you've got data centers on one hand, and then you have the low carbon revolution with electrification of transport, and of course, batteries and renewables are going to continue. So for us, really, what we're setting up--

what we're trying to do is essentially put all of that flexibility, data, technology, smart solutions at the heart of a distributor in its operation, and deliver benefits. So the commitment we've set out in our business plan is we think that over the course of the next five years, we can defer 400 million pounds worth of infrastructure by using flexibility, and that's considerable. That's that's a big number in terms of--

400 millions pounds worth of copper that doesn't need to be installed. So 40 million pounds worth of overhead lines and cables and transformers, that instead of putting that stuff in the ground, we're going to use the system better. That sounds like a good result.

And we're going to use the technology we have. We can use the customer and consumer flexibility that we have on the network. So that's really what we are excited about in terms of where we see things things going.

The final question is, this DSO, the UKPN DSO, will it be called UKPN DSO? Will it have a yellow website, like the ESO's website?

I can't promise that.

What is it going to be?

I can't promise that.

And that's coming soon, right? Coming this year, next year?

Quarter one, 2023. Yeah, coming soon.

Are you going to do a launch party? Can we come?

We will organize something. Yeah, absolutely.

Please make sure we get an invite. All right Thanks so much for coming on the podcast. We'll see you soon.

And if you're listening to this, please do hit subscribe, it means the world to us. All right. Thanks very much.

Thank you.