The OR Society’s President’s Medal for 2024 has been awarded to Smith Institute for its pioneering work on the Dynamic Reserve Setting (DRS) project, developed in collaboration with National Grid Electricity System Operator (ESO) to enhance the security and economy of Britain’s electricity grid.
This project has the potential to revolutionise decision-making for Britain’s electricity grid, by providing operators with real-time, updated forecasts of reserve recommendations.
Reserve can be thought of as ‘spare capacity’ – how much capacity is held to ensure the grid is secure when demand or generation patterns deviate from the initially expected forecasts.
The DRS model was built to capture the complex relationships present within the energy grid, and how the current and future expected state of the grid relates to the amount of reserve to hold.
As more renewables are incorporated onto the grid, the generation of electricity across the country becomes subject to increased uncertainty – the weather may not be as sunny or windy as anticipated. Historic approaches to determining reserve requirements were not equipped to manage large amounts of renewables in the grid. The dynamic approach developed by Smith Institute ensures reserve recommendations are accurate and the system is secure in the presence of increasing amounts of renewable generation.
The team at Smith Institute developed a probabilistic machine-learning model to provide dynamic reserve recommendations that change as new information about the weather and system state becomes available.
By processing real-time data on weather, system flows, the DRS model optimally recommends reserve levels across multiple timescales to match operator practical needs. This approach ensures the system has sufficient reserve to keep the grid secure, without suggesting overly conservative values that reduce economic operation of the grid.
The benefits of the DRS tool
The model allows control room engineers to understand how the recommendation was reached, demonstrating how factors such as wind conditions impacted the overall outcome.
Initial results from back testing on 4 years of data showed the DRS tool reduces reserve recommendations by an average of 300MW per half hour period, whilst operating at the same level of security. This ensures the better alignment of reserves to match grid requirements prevents unnecessary repositioning of generators, supporting ESO’s ambition for 100% zero-carbon operation by 2025.
Other remarkable results that emerged included a saving of 1 GW of reserve holdings over just two hours in a real control room trial – equivalent to the output of two nuclear reactors during the same period.
Joshua Brooke, Senior Machine Learning Engineer at ESO, stated, “DRS is a step change in how we can operate the GB electricity system. By having better visibility of the need for reserves, we can save the consumer money and save the atmosphere CO2. We can dramatically increase our flexibility in how we procure generation through new and better services.”
ESO plans to implement DRS as a business-as-usual solution and use it as a template for its AI/Machine-Learning processes in the future.
Excellence of the OR Process
The Dynamic Reserve Setting project exemplifies operational research excellence through:
- An iterative and open problem formulation process.
- Having a foundation rooted in mathematics, machine-learning, and forecasting.
The project stood out due to its:
- Data-driven, probabilistic, and explainable solution.
- Effective handling of an atypical forecasting problem associated with renewable energy integration.
Dr Kieran Kalair, Principal Consultant at Smith Institute, commented: “I know everyone at Smith Institute is thrilled The OR Society has awarded the President’s Medal to The Dynamic Reserve Setting project. DRS has the potential to totally revolutionise how reserve setting is done for the GB electricity grid, making it more sustainable, efficient, and effective. The impact and importance of this cannot be overestimated as the world pivots to a low-carbon, renewable energy future.”
Gilbert Owusu, President of The OR Society, said: “The President’s Medal acknowledges exceptional contributions in operational research and this project really stood out. Britain needs an electricity grid that is economical, green and dependable and The Dynamic Reserve Setting project is not only a significant advancement in balancing our energy grid; it will transform and shape the future of energy management in the UK.”
The award was presented at the OR Society’s annual conference OR66 held at Bangor University on 10-12th September. The medal will be presented to Smith Institute by The OR Society at its annual Blackett Memorial Lecture on 5th December at The Royal Society.
