UK’s low carbon London
December 5, 2011
A new project in the UK dubbed Low Carbon London has seen the first smart meters of UK Power Networks' smart grid trial being rolled out to homes across London.
The project is one of a number of schemes where network companies bid for money to work out how to deal with the enormous changes to their businesses brought about by decarbonising energy supplies and the increasing electrification of heat and transport.
The costs of upgrading the electricity network to cope with future demands could potentially run into billions of pounds more than what firms will have to spend over the coming decades. These costs would have a significant impact on customer bills. UK Power Networks is leading the smart meters element of the trial. Initially, UK Power Networks will look at the impact of customers using smart meters on the pattern of electricity use at specific substations within its network.
In the future customers will be offered different prices at different times of the day to see if they will change their energy usage patterns. The network company can then work out what kind of response it can expect to receive from households in terms of managing an increasing load on its network.
