Isra-Mart srl: Cable & Wireless aims to bring grid into digital age

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Cable & Wireless (C&W) has been accredited by Cisco to install the networking firm's internet-based systems on substations, marking a step forward for the company in the UK's fledging smart grid sector.

C&W will confirm today that it has become a partner in Cisco's Substation Automation Authorized Technology Provider programme, making it the first company that can deploy Cisco's IP-based substation automation products to UK utilities.

Substation automation helps ensure that substations deliver uninterrupted power supplies even with increasing volumes of renewable energy and variable power sources, such as offshore wind farms or solar panels.

Digital communications infrastructure is seen as a key element of smart grids, enabling operators to shift peak loads depending on demand and accommodate intermittent renewable energy supplies, such as wind or solar.

Smart grid technology is still in the early stages, but C&W is already involved in two projects bidding for a share of Ofgem's £64m Low Carbon Networks fund designed to help companies bolster grid technology.

The company is down to provide an IP-based communication network for UK Power Networks' £9m Flexible Plug and Play project, located between Cambridge and Peterborough. C&W is also a prospective supplier for Scottish and Southern Energy's £29.5m New Thames Valley Vision LCN project.

Those two projects, along with four others, have passed Ofgem's screening stage and will now go on to file full submissions by September.

Speaking to BusinessGreen, Paul Brodrick, C&W Worldwide utilities business development director, said that the company is hoping to build similar partnerships with other companies and utilities in an attempt to grow its smart grid business and expertise.

While admitting that it was difficult to predict how big the company's nascent smart grid division would become, Brodrick predicted that any such growth will require an increasing amount of collaboration between the telecoms and utility sectors.

C&W is building up its internal smart grid teams by drawing on expertise mainly from its utilities rather than telecoms divison.

"We've been taken from a utilities background to telecoms, but in the future we'll see a blurring of the lines between the two sectors," he said.