Innovation Project of the Year: Smart Grid Optimisation

Celebrating innovations that make electricity networks more flexible, efficient or better able to accommodate low-carbon generation and demand.

The finalists

AVK & Pure Data Centres Group

Europe’s First Microgrid

AVK and Pure Data Centres Group have built a 110MW microgrid at Pure DC's DUB01 campus in Dublin, allowing the site to generate and manage its own power rather than waiting for grid capacity that planning and reinforcement timescales cannot deliver at the pace AI workloads demand. The system combines on-site generation, battery storage, combined heat and power, heat recovery and control software to supply dispatchable power matched to volatile computing loads, while remaining able to connect to the grid later. Pure DC has also agreed the transfer of 9GWh of certified German biomethane to the Irish gas network to displace natural gas.

Sirio Multilateral Strategies

VEST: Vulnerability in the Energy System Transition

VEST is a predictive platform built by Sirio Multilateral Strategies Ltd to help electricity distribution networks work out where support for low-carbon technology will have most effect. Where targeting has typically relied on deprivation indices or property suitability assessed in isolation, VEST combines personal vulnerability with property-level readiness, drawing on more than 150 demographic, financial, geographic and property variables. Models for solar, battery storage and heat pumps were built and validated against real installation data, producing comparative adoption scores across roughly 178,000 postcodes, aggregated to LSOA and local authority level. Deployment is progressing with one distribution network and four delivery partners.

SP Electricity North West

Active Network Management

SP Electricity North West's active network management system models the distribution network in real time and manages constraints using flexible connections and flexibility services, rather than requiring physical reinforcement before new generation can connect. An estimated 1.63GW of low-carbon and distributed energy projects are awaiting connection in the North West, some facing multi-year waits. The first customer connected in November 2025, a 30MW battery site at Wrightington, which accepted temporary import limits at peak times. The connection avoided reinforcement altogether, saving an estimated £4.7m, of which £3.2m would have fallen to bill payers, and was curtailed by just 0.38% in six months.

SP Electricity North West

BiTraDER

BiTraDER is a peer-to-peer trading platform allowing customers with non-firm connections to buy and sell spare network capacity, or trade their position in the queue for curtailment. At present a network operator can curtail a non-firm connection without regard to conditions on the day, which deters investment in generation and storage. The platform lets customers earn revenue by selling capacity when their own demand is low, and buy it when they need more, with the network operator acting as a neutral market facilitator. The market has been built, trialled on a live network and integrated with the operator's control systems.

SSEN Transmission & N-SIDE

Year-Ahead Outage Optimiser

SSEN Transmission and N-SIDE have built cloud-based software that schedules planned outages on high-voltage circuits, work previously coordinated across thousands of interventions a year using spreadsheets. Funded through Ofgem's Network Innovation Allowance, the tool applies constraint programming to resolve competing timelines, resource limits and grid security rules, generating an optimal schedule rather than flagging clashes after the event. Shorter outages mean less time with transmission boundaries restricted, reducing the need to curtail wind generation. A 12-month trial on the SSEN Transmission network, concluding its proof-of-concept phase in late 2025, cut total outage-days by 7.5% and schedule disruption times by 34%.

UK Power Networks

Constellation

Constellation adds machine learning and real-time analytics to conventional substations so they can respond to live conditions instead of operating to fixed engineering limits, releasing capacity that static settings leave permanently unused. The approach can unlock up to 50% additional capacity from existing infrastructure, avoiding the cost and disruption of physical reinforcement and shortening connection times for renewable generation, electric vehicle charging and electrified heating. Initial deployment covers two grid supply point sites, at Maidstone in Kent and at Thanet, alongside four distributed energy resource locations that support the wider digital platform.