Learnings

Outcomes

The project has successfully met all of the project objectives and success criteria by the original planned completion date. 

One key benefit of the project was to reduce the risk of networks being overwhelmed by once in a generation storms that have significant impact on the OHL network, the procedure will allow a large number of emergency repairs to be completed by large portions of the operational team to get customers back on supply and reduce the reputational damage of DNOs. Reputational damage is not quantified within E6, and this benefit cannot be observed until storm joint is used during an actual severe storm.  

The project believes the technology readiness level of Storm Joint has increased from TRL 5 to TRL 8

Lessons Learnt

The project has created and trialed a training course to teach operational staff how to install the temporary Storm Joint, the training course and associated training video is available on request.  The training course requires operational staff to spend four to five days training, the business found it was difficult to justify spending this amount of time on training for a procedure that may not be used every year. Future work could be completed to identify ways to reduce training requirements and therefore make the procedure more accessible to a larger number of operational staff.

To be able to replicate this solution, a DNO would need to order the equipment, develop an installation procedure, and have the equipment approved to be installed on their network. Storm Joint was developed in collaboration with the supplier and is designed to work on all DNO networks with OHLs. Future work could be completed to have the equipment stocked at UK Power Networks stores.

UK Power Networks have identified a list of equipment that can be used to install the Storm Joint from the ground using a three person team (one SAP and two fitters).  The list of equipment and installation procedure developed by UK Power Networks can be provided on request.