Energy data and software company Advanced Infrastructure has announced their successful bid in the Smart Meter Energy Data Repository (SEDR) Programme funded by BEIS (Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy).

The SEDR Programme aims to support innovation to determine the technical and commercial feasibility of a smart meter energy data repository, which will enable future innovation of products and services to benefit consumers while ensuring their data remains protected under the Smart Meter Data Access and Privacy Framework.

The programme is part of the up to £65 million overarching Flexibility Innovation Programme which seeks to enable large-scale widespread electricity system flexibility through smart, flexible, secure, and accessible technologies and markets. The Flexibility Innovation Programme will fund innovation across a range of key smart energy applications, and sits within the £1 billion Net Zero Innovation Portfolio (NZIP).

The technical solution proposed by Advanced Infrastructure will use machine learning research co-developed by the University of Sheffield and Advanced Infrastructure to leverage the power of aggregated smart meter data in reducing the cost of heating and powering our homes.

Advanced Infrastructure’s current partner Scottish and Southern Electricity Networks (SSEN), a distribution network operator supplying electricity to 3.9 million homes, will co-create the solution alongside Data Communications Company (DCC), which operates Great Britain’s smart meter communications platform.

The project’s approach puts privacy in the foreground, building new tools and techniques to protect personal data but share anonymised trends and insights for the common good.

The project will propose a solution to allow the use of gigabytes of data which go unused in the sector every day, all while maintaining strict privacy protections and consumer control over their personal data. As a result, the data could help lower prices and speed up rollouts of low-carbon technologies such as electric vehicle chargers and heating systems.

The SEDR programme consists of 2 phases with Phase 1 identifying applications and establishing the feasibility of solutions comprising IoT sensors and supporting data management tools suitable for operation within the Smart Meter System and the DCC network.

Phase 2 will then develop and trial, further developing the proposed technical solutions and building/ deploying demonstration system and devices.

Headed up by Christopher Jackson, CEO at Advanced Infrastructure, the project will run for three months with the main outcome being to prove the validity of the Technical Solution, or disprove it by identifying a superior alternative. This will involve a rapid assessment of the stakeholders, interest groups, contacts and data providers required to successfully validate a representative set of core use-cases and to prioritise the most likely candidates. 

Advanced Infrastructure CEO, Christopher Jackson Commented: 

“We are thrilled Advanced Infrastructure’s Technical Solution for establishing a system-wide repository has been awarded the funding through BEIS and we are very much looking forward to working alongside the other participant organisations on the programme. 

“Currently the energy related data from over 20 million smart meters is underperforming due to poor data access. This in turn is reducing the UK’s ability to transition to a net zero energy system. Through our proposed solution partnering with the University of Sheffield and SSEN, we aim to not only establish the feasibility of the solutions but in turn contribute to what could be a game changing cloud-based repository of smart meter energy data in the UK.”

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 Professor Alastair Buckley at the University of Sheffield commented:

“The University of Sheffield has a key role in the project to develop models that can use electricity demand data measured at samples of different points in the electricity network in order to make accurate time resolved estimates across all locations. This could be estimates associated with low voltage transformers or for specific groups of buildings.

 “We’ll take anonymised data from groups of smart meters in individual homes and businesses and combine it with metering at supply points on the high voltage transmission lines. Together we’ll be able to make predictions of electricity flows at any point on the network. This kind of model will be a game changer for the industry and bring the richness of smart meter data into the planning and operation of a net-zero electricity system”

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