Objectives
The FlexNet consortium is organised in 8 work-streams that address specific areas of social science and technology but which come together to meet the challenges faced by electricity networks posed by achieving a low carbon energy system. Broadly the objectives for the consortium are pitched on two timescales set by aspects of energy policy.
Objectives for the 2020 Challenge: the UK Government's Low-Carbon Transition Programme (LCTP) sets an ambition of connecting 35 GW of renewable energy sources to the GB network with the aim of sourcing 40% of GB electricity from renewables. The objectives for the consortium are to establish the impact of intermittent generation on system planning and operation and to investigate strategies for connection of large offshore wind farms using HVDC. This set of objectives was given further impetus by the Electrical Networks Strategy Group's (ENSG) Vision for 2020 document which identified certain key transmission network upgrades and the need to reassess network control to accommodate new operating regimes. The main focus of the 2020 objectives is on whole-system and transmission level issues.
Objectives for the 2050 Challenge: the Climate Change Committee (CCC) established the case for an 80% reduction in CO2 emissions and set an aspiration to totally decarbonise electricity production by 2030. This dramatic change dominates the long-term objectives for electricity network evolution. Further, it is now expected that carbon-intense end-use such as building heating and private transport might be moved into a low-carbon electricity sector. FlexNet must respond to this ratcheting up of the objectives by investigating how such a network would be planned and run. It is widely assumed that the system will "invert" to become a system operated in a "load-follows-generation" mode. This implies a huge change in customer participation and a much more complex and actively controlled distribution network.