National Grid Electricity Distribution and Octopus collaborate with developers
An accelerating connections ideation event by National Grid Electricity Distribution has brought together more than 35 customer developers and industry partners.
The aim was to explore opportunities for speeding up distribution connections and achieving clean power goals, through improving processes and leveraging new technologies.
National Grid Electricity Distribution led the event, taking a structured and ‘design thinking’ approach to discuss current challenges, rapidly developing future solutions through collaboration and testing ideas with the support of AI tools.
National Grid Electricity Distribution has been working with Octopus Energy and their strategic technology partner, Voltquant, to develop an AI tool for testing solutions, which was used at the event. This is based on a large language model which demonstrates the emerging digital capabilities in the connections space.
The key themes identified in the event included managing risk and improving access to data, and the solutions developed aim to address these areas of concern for the industry.
The team will be sharing outcomes of the event with the wider industry and based on the success of the workshop and positive feedback, National Grid Electricity Distribution intend to hold similar events in the future, it said.
Amanda Le Brocq, Director of Connections at National Grid Electricity Distribution, said:
“This was our first time holding an event of this kind to accelerate distribution connections.
“We wanted to generate ideas, identify problems and develop solutions by working closely with innovative collaborators.
“Providing great customer service is very important to us, which is why we want our customers to be at the heart of the conversation. The event helped us to deepen our understanding of the challenges our customers face in the distribution connections space, and we will use the great ideas and valuable feedback to improve how we engage in the future.”
Max Forshaw, Grid Transformation Lead, Octopus Energy, said:
“It is fantastic to see such an innovative approach to tackling the connections crisis. Whilst top-down reform is important, finding ways to maximise distribution network capacity by crowding in new renewable projects will be crucial to achieving the Clean Power 2030 target.
“National Grid Electricity Distribution are leading the way on this, with this event showing how DNOs can work collaboratively with their customers to find solutions.”
Nikita Dabizha, CEO and Founder of Voltquant, said:
“At Voltquant, we believe that AI is the catalyst for revolutionising energy infrastructure. We’re thrilled to showcase the industry’s most advanced energy-specific AI — solving real-world challenges, delivering actionable insights, and redefining clean energy connections.”
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