REACT (Rapid Evaluation Areal Connection Tool) is a geographic visualisation planning tool designed to help stakeholders navigate the complexities of upgrading the power grid to achieve Net Zero. By visualising power flows and analysing planned generation, demand and storage, including contracted substation pipelines, alongside other decarbonisation pathways, REACT enables the Network Licensee to optimise network development. This NIA project aims to deliver a standalone tool covering the entire SSEN-T licence area based on the output of the REACT Alpha Phase and including the development of new scenarios to understand scheme status / likelihood of success plus other user-driven experimental features. Enabling users to optimise demand and generation placement with REACT maximises asset efficiency and supports effective deployment of new infrastructure.
Benefits
REACT’s Unique Selling Point (USP) is that it is an intuitive aggregated spatial view of current and future planning status of energy and utility networks, energy developments and geography.
It satisfies a wide range of stakeholders with engaging, easy-to-use / understandable visuals in which the data model is live with automated updates. Moreover, the data model merges complex datasets that have never been previously combined.
The CBA model is based on the following assumptions:
A Cost Benefit Analysis (CBA) was developed for REACT in Q1 2024 as part of the SIF Beta Phase application and has recently been reviewed to ensure it remains relevant.
• It is assumed that the technology would be operational in 2031 following completion of this NIA project, a SIF Beta Phase and a period of further testing/refinement.
• Estimated total project cost (Discovery -> Deployment): £7.7 million
• The lifetime net financial benefit is estimated to be £260 million comprising savings to:
• Offshore wind curtailment reduction: 1% annual saving
• Onshore wind curtailment reduction: 1% annual saving
• Transmission Network Use of System (TNUoS) reduction: 1% annual saving
• Connection application cost reduction: 50% annual saving
Summary of Benefits:
Cost Reduction for Network and Consumers
• Curtailment reduction by implementing a more holistic view of the network when considering connections which allows Customers to connect quicker to the network.
Reduced Environmental Impact
• Build a more optimum network by considering the entire network at an early stage.
• Ability to visualise and understand the interactivity between different future network scenarios.
Connection Application Improvements
• Facilitated through a pre-application discussion.
Learnings
Outcomes
As the project progressed towards its conclusion, two key Use Cases were focused on: i) Spatial Viability and Risked Capacity, and ii) Substation Capacity Buildup over time. These will be summarised further below:
Use Case: Spatial Viability & Risked Capacity
Users: Power Transmission Strategic Energy Planning and Energy Insights
User Need:
- What are the key risk & success factors for customer schemes in ultimately connecting?
- What’s the likelihood of early schemes achieving a Gate 2 connection offer?
- What’s the aggregate individual viability over a network zone, to estimate a probabilistic ‘expected capacity’?
- How does this change if criteria assumptions are adjusted, reflecting different future scenarios?
Use Case: Substation Capacity Buildup vs Rating
Users: Power Transmission Investment Planning
User Need:
- How to see spatial connectivity between customer schemes and the substations they are connected or contracted to connect to (within a network zone)?
- What does the date-ordered connection capacity buildup look like for a given substation and when does it exceed transformer rating?
- How much of the connection capacity is Generation vs Storage?
- How does this change if Risked Capacity assumptions are adjusted?
During the project, to explore these and various other use cases, several interactive features were developed including the following:
- Multiple Energy Systems/ Networks (including gas & hydrogen networks, and planned hydrogen/ carbon capture developments)
- Table View (of all the scheme attributes, with all the column sortable and/or filterable), which later was expanded to sortable table views for substations and hydrogen developments.
- Geographic Filters as a fast & flexible way to slice & dice the spatial distribution of schemes according to preset network zones or by custom areas:
- Visual representation of area
- Instant filtering of pipeline based on geographic filters
- Totaliser, data tables and other insights updated based on geographic filters
- Time Slider: Current view, Future view or Both – according to any year from 2025 to 2050
- Probabilistic Analysis of Scheme Connection Pipeline
- Help inform network view on Gate-2 readiness of schemes
- Automated data model
- Pipeline data can be updated daily
- Flexible user driven application of risked capacity scoring criteria
- Map & data table instantly updated based on risked capacity scoring criteria and active filters
- Allows for fast and flexible “what-if” analysis
- Data exportable to csv & PowerPoint
- Various insights based on spatial data
- Windfarm / battery / solar land suitability colour-coded for planning risk; wind turbine capacity factor in grayscale overlay
- A range of analytic charts that respond to geographic and attribute filters
In terms of network business outcomes, towards the end of the project, a specific network zone (Argyll & Bute) was selected as a test to examine the planning / connection pipeline and viability scoring against the internal data already held within SSEN Transmission CRM, with favourable results for supporting the Network Plan 2035 (‘NP35’) effort. This prompted discussion and targeted feedback for refinement of both the digital model and front-end tool and REACT was considered helpful in terms of additionally assessing pre-connection offer schemes in planning.
TRL6 has been achieved by project end with REACT demonstrated in a relevant environment with deployment being on a limited scale within SSEN-T. The Users have used the tool for real world applications to a limited extent.
Lessons Learnt
Stakeholder Engagement
The approach for engaging with/ analysing the needs of departments and individuals within the Transmission System Planning business within the first two months (before building any new features) worked well and proved to be an essential foundation in triaging areas for priority development effort. The conversations and workshops held with the technical system planners helped the Partners to understand the range and complexity of real issues being encountered within the business, as well as hear views on priority focus areas.
The intention of quickly deploying experimental early prototype features in the front-end tool was initially realised through a custom ‘Demo Gallery’ to test + seek feedback on data visualisation techniques, dashboards, mini calculations and Design boards. The ability for Users to add comments was included, but in the end, this was not well used by the business Users who preferred to voice comments through project meetings.
Later in the project, a simple ‘Provide Feedback’ system was deployed where any User could offer comments on app functionality, app bugs, data bugs etc, so that these comments could be centrally tracked by the Partners. This was useful for objectively capturing, triaging and liquidating suggestions for improvement on styling and features; but outside of the project’s core Users, this system was also not generally used by the business.
Throughout the project, it was found that it was relatively straightforward to gain business information and views on general business pain points and priorities through conversations and workshops with the support of the Innovation team but was more difficult to elicit feedback on tools and features in development. Whilst such initial feedback was limited during the early part of the project, engagement increased significantly towards the latter stages as the tool's functionality grew, particularly with the outcome assessment scoring system
