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Resilient Electricity Networks for Great Britain (RESNET)

The RESNET project concerns the future reliability of the British electricity network.

Project leader

Prof Richard Dawson

Dates

2011-2015

Project staff

Dr Sean Wilkinson

Sponsors

EPSRC

Partners

University of Manchester

Description

This is being challenged on three fronts:

  • a potentially substantial change to the existing electricity supply mix
  • a likely shift of non-electric energy usage to our electricity network, changing both volume and timing of electricity demand
  • climate-related change to both electricity demand and infrastructure performance.

RESNET aims to develop:

  • a comprehensive approach to analyse climate-related changes in the reliability of the UK's electricity system at a national scale
  • tools for quantifying the value of adaptations to enhance its resilience.

Newcastle is contributing to this project in three respects:

  • providing spatial weather scenarios for simulation, in particular of severe storms
  • structural models of pylons to test their resilience to extreme winds
  • analysis of network resilience to spatial hazards under different adaptation strategies.