Capacity to Customers (C2C) engages customers in an innovative form of demand/ generation side response that accommodates much higher demands on existing electricity networks without the need for reinforcement. Customers are at the heart of C2C and it seeks to prove that the innovative application of existing technology together with new commercial offerings can be combined to meet customers' future low carbon needs at much lower cost. C2C's technical elements leverage techniques developed for customer service improvements to offer significantly higher capacity to customers. C2C will be piloted on High Voltage (HV) networks supplying 12% of our customers allowing them secure access to the networks' previously unavailable latent capacity.

As GB fulfils its decarbonisation obligations under the Climate Change Act 2008, to cut greenhouse gasemissions by 80% by 2050, the demand on electricity networks will dramatically increase. Various reports forecast overall electricity demand to grow by 1.2% per annum to 600TWh/year by 2050, an approximate 100% increase from current levels. This increase in network demand will be driven primarily through the decarbonisation of heat, transportation and electricity production rather than by a growing population.The Problem has two direct consequences which will need to be resolved in order to move the UK towards a decarbonised economy:

• High costs to customers

• Significant environmental & societal impacts.

The techniques that traditional reinforcement use are also very intrusive for local communities and can often involve extensive excavations and disruption. Average reinforcement timescales are in the region of 12-16 weeks for work involving cable upgrades or switchgear and much longer when involving new transformers or more complicated work.

Objectives

The key objectives of the C2C project are as follows:

• Adaptive network control functionality: The trial will develop advanced network control functionality that will through productisation be available to all GB DNOs

• Demand response commercial templates: The trial will produce a series of model commercial contracts that can be used by all DNOs to extend the C2C Method and its benefits to all DNO customers

• Customer segmentation template: The trial will produce a customer segmentation template, describing how a DNO's customer base can be segmented and hence better approached for the introduction of demand response contracts

• New connections process: The trial will produce a new connections process detailing those technical and commercial steps required to extend the benefits to future C2C customers

• Overall customer feedback: This includes feedback from customers participating in the C2C Project including; comments on connections process, the form of response and feedback from customer engagement on planned interruptions and unplanned interruptions

• Network data: Detailed analysis of the benefits of the C2C Method on network losses and power quality in the form of a full set of network performance data

• Modelling/Simulation outcomes: The simulations will provide a detailed technical and economic assessment of the benefits of the C2C Solution

• New design and planning standard: The Method represents a fundamental change in the evolution of grids from passive to active operation and Electricity North West Ltd in conjunction with Parsons Brinckerhoff Power will produce proposals regarding new operating and design standards to inform the amendment or replacement of Engineering Recommendation P2/6.