Resilient Electricity Networks for a productive Grid Architecture (RENGA)

Electricity access is widely acknowledged as one of the key enablers of human development. Bringing electricity to low income areas in the developing world involves great technical, geopolitical and socioeconomic challenges. In recent years, autonomous electricity supply systems (AESS) have found a role in replacing kerosene lamps and candles as sources for basic lighting. However, their power rating was too low to power even small machinery, which made them have very little impact on the way people produce goods. According to the well-established power systems planning paradigm, the way to enable electricity access suitable for more productive applications is to build new transmission corridors to ship power from large power plants to isolated areas where it will be distributed using regional distribution networks. While this approach proved successful in the mid twentieth century, it often incurs prohibitive costs that make such projects infeasible in developing countries. One of the main issues of the old paradigm is that it misses the opportunity to use distributed energy resources (ie small scale generation, energy storage, etc) available today to drive the costs down and achieve better energy supply. The aim of this project is to bring some light over this matter by investigating a new approach where the electrical network would start from the local interconnection of small scale AESS. This ambitious goal will require the investigation of a suitable technological solution to link multiple AESS together, the development of new tools that are suitable to optimise the operation and planning of a network of interconnected AESS with models of demand and generation tailored for rural electrification applications. The work will use Rwanda as the main study case with the cooperation of the University of Rwanda, that will provide support for the derivation of models and will study and characterise the most interesting productive uses of electricity to meet the specific needs in rural Rwanda. The work will also be carried in collaboration with BBOXX and Meshpower, two British companies started by alumni of Imperial College London that commercialise AESS in several countries around the world including Rwanda.

This project will investigate the expansion of an electric power system starting from the aggregation of interconnected autonomous electricity supply systems (AESS). Within the project, we will research the technology required to build the interconnection network with affordability, safety, easy of installation and resilience in mind. We develop tools for the optimisation of the operation of such system and planning methods that will make extensive use of smart enabling technologies (e.g. flexible demand, energy stored) in order to lower the costs of building network infrastructure while achieving high resiliency. We will also develop models of demand and generation for planning studies and validate existing openly available data against historical data provided by several industrial partners. As part of the project, a team will also study potential productive uses of electricity in order to gain insight about what the real benefits of providing better access to electricity would be and providing specifications that will be used in the work on technology development and planning.

The work within the project is expected to have impact across different fields (ie power electronics, power systems engineering, energy policy) and to be of interest to academics, industry and policy makers. Impact in within the academic community will be maximised through the dissemination in specialised conferences and journal publications. Impact on industry and policy makers will be achieved through the collaboration with the AESS manufacturers involved in the project and through the influence of the work within the pres oject in our existing collaboration ties with distribution network operators (e.g. UKPN), utilities (EDCL in the project) and regulatory bodies (e.g. OFGEM).

A further impact expected in the project is the development expertise in the target LMIC countries. In this project we will work in collaboration with the University of Rwanda and the Tribhuvan University in Nepal. The interaction within the project in the form of co-supervision of the research assistants involved in the University of Rwanda and the multiple mutual exchanges between the institutions, we aim to establish long lasting ties with both institutions that will give more international visibility to these universities to attract researchers and prospect students. We have already been part in the validation of an MSc programme in the University of Rwanda as external advisers and the expectation is to use the project meetings to be part of teaching activities within the courses taught at the university.