Learnings

Outcomes

The project and all work packages have been completed successfully within the project timeframe.

Through the project, Opportunities registers and implementation roadmaps have been developed  for the 3 areas which were covered within the project - minimising substation whole-life carbon, increasing substation circularity, and nature-based solutions for substations. 

• Whole life Carbon - developing substations to reduce the carbon impact that they have across the full lifespan, and assessing how this can be achieved through design standards, asset management, use of lower-carbon materials, improvements in the construction process, and the impact of the electrical components used.
• Circular Subsations - This section of work is concerned with how the materials and components in a substation can be reused or recovered in some way at the end of its lifespan. This focussed on an overarching strategy for material and component management, deconstruction of existing substations, circular in- and out-flow, Material specification and end-of-life options, and the Future Disassembly of the substations and materials.
•  Nature-Based solutions - Actions and solutions which protect, sustainably manage, or restore natural ecosystems in and around the substation. The focus areas on this were on site selection and preparation, landscaping of substations and surrounding areas, material selection and ecological enhancements.

The main outcome leading on from this work has been the development of the VISTA tool; this is for use by design engineers, at the point of substation design, to assess how various solutions can be implemented to improve the sustainability of the substation. The solutions are visualised using standard models of substations to show how these will be typically impacted.

The tool can be used for multiple sizes and types of substation, from 11kV to 275kV,  and allows different solutions to be combined to show the total impact of these. This includes a summation of carbon reduction across these solutions, and the spread of these reductions across the short, medium and long term.  In addition, it will also show the reduction or change in component usage, showing how this will impact the carbon footprint of the subsation.

Lessons Learnt

No Major modifcations were required through the TruSSt project, and as such there are no major areas where learning can be taken for the running of future similar projects.