Set out in the UK Energy Act 2013, the Capacity Market (CM) is one of the UK government initatives for ensuring security of electrical energy supply for homes, businesses and industry. The CM not only secures additional electricity supply for use during grid stress events – which is increasingly important as energy demand increases, and the UK moves to more intermittent, less flexible renewable generation – but also creates an opportunity for those with generation capacity to earn additional income.
Advances in technology, connectivity and software have made an increasing number of tools available to improve utility performance. The Advanced Metering Infrastructure (AMI) deployments of the past decade demonstrate there is tremendous value to be found in the data generated across utility service networks.
Cutting-edge communications technology will make wind farms more profitable and the transition to a renewable energy economy more economical. That’s why Siemens is taking part in an EU-funded research project called VirtuWind. The project is designed to cut procurement costs for a wind farm’s control network by 25 percent and operating costs by 10 percent annually.