North East universities' study aims to keep power on in extreme weather

A North East research project is working on how power supplies can be maintained as extreme weather events increase with climate change.

The project led by Durham University and Northumbria University, with support from industry partners including Northern Gas Networks, aims to tackle issues around challenges to the use of renewable energy by using satellite technology to monitor and manage power grids more effectively, as well as helping restore power following an extreme weather event.

Dr Jing Jiang of Northumbria’s Department of Mathematics , Physics and Electrical Engineering will lead the university’s involvement, which centres around the use of satellite technology and data-driven energy scheduling to restore power.

She said: “By using satellite images we will be able to get a much clearer picture of the amount and location of wind turbines, solar panels and other distributed energy resources in a local area. This will not only allow us to more accurately predict the energy which could potentially be entering the power grid, but also greatly improve energy coordination and management.

“If terrestrial communications systems are compromised due to extreme weather events, satellite communications can provide a reliable alternative, providing high-speed and reliable data transmission.”

Small-scale energy generation and storage units, such as rooftop solar panels, small wind turbines, batteries and electric vehicles, are known as distributed energy resources (DERs). They are often owned and operated by homeowners at a consumer level and can be connected to the local power grid or used to power stand-alone applications.

With the amount of solar and wind power produced in the UK increasing, there are expected to be several million DERs connected to the power grid over the next decade. It is also almost impossible to accurately predict the amount of energy generated by these renewable DERs due to a lack of information about their number and location and variations in weather conditions, which will only become more challenging with climate change.

If DERs are not managed correctly in future it could lead to power grid congestion, or extreme fluctuations in voltage which may cause widespread power outages. The study’s models will be tested at Northern Gas Network’s National Energy Research Village on the outskirts of Gateshead. This ‘living lab’ houses a wide range of facilities including a solar farm, standby generation, two fully-functioning ‘hydrogen homes’, and a battery storage facility.

There is also a domestic test zone with nine residential dwellings of different ages, from 1910s era terrace building to 1990s era homes.

Northumbria’s Prof Eamon Scullion is a leading authority on satellite-based laser communications systems and is working alongside Dr Jiang on the SAT-Guard project. He said: “There is an ever-growing list of extremely varied an interesting applications of satellite technology, directly impacting and improving our everyday lives.

“This project will address key challenges in the energy sector at a very local level in the UK, and through exploiting the novel satellite communications technology also developed at Northumbria University.”

Meanwhile researchers at Durham University have explored how Arctic marine species could be impacted by climate change and rising sea temperatures. They have explored how future expansions of new species into an area of Arctic Ocean could affect existing marine communities.

Changes to the numbers of tiny crustaceans had the largest effect on the entire ecosystem. Their decline was linked to reduced numbers of Arctic cod, ringed seals, beluga whales and polar bears. Increased numbers of killer whales would also lead to more substantial declines of narwals and seals.

Beth Gillie, of Durham University’s Department of Biosciences, co-led the study and said: “The research sheds new light on how novel species moving into the Arctic due to climate change could have cascading effects on the entire food web.”