National Grid Electricity Transmission (NGET) wants to find a low-carbon alternative to replace the backup diesel generators installed at its substations and it has launched a ‘Call for Innovation’ to businesses across the UK to put forward proposals.
NGET uses batteries alongside diesel generators to ensure activities such as cooling fans, pumps and lighting are maintained at its 250 substations. The backup generators have less than a 1% chance of operating per year.
Now NGET is seeking to establish a new commercial approach with a third party supplier, enabling it to try new backup power systems or combined standby and generation assets. It says low-carbon alternative diesel fuels are available in the market, but it also wants to explore new assets, interfaces, commercial frameworks and asset management policies that support the adoption of new technology.
The tender for the 36-month contract specifies new technologies that can provide 300 – 500kVA low emission backup power to a substation for a minimum of 72 hours with no external supply, or novel technology that can deliver energy solutions to meet all or part of the substation load demand (AC/DC) during normal and standby operations (as a priority) combined with commercial generation (MW) that can synchronise to the GB electricity network. Alternatively it allows for a ‘service offering’ related to the provision of power during a loss of supply event.
The Call for Innovation also specifies that the solution should offer:
• Low emission, backup power systems or combined standby and generation assets
• Products that are of an optimised design to ensure space efficiency
• Products that require minimal civils works to install
• Products that have an interface with supervisory control and data acquisition
The deadline for tenders is 14 April. Apply here