The RaaS project is investigating an innovative solution to improve the operational resilience of electricity distribution networks in remote or rural locations that experience a higher number of power outages. The RaaS concept represents a flexible solution to increase security of supply in areas where traditional reinforcement or use of DNO owned standby generation to provide network resilience would be prohibitively costly.
The proposed scheme would use services provided by a third party owned Battery Energy Storage System (BESS) together with local Distributed Energy Resources (DER) to swiftly, automatically, restore power to customers in the event of a fault. Through temporary operation of the local network in islanded mode, RaaS will maintain supply to customers allowing time for the DNO to respond to the issue.
RaaS would also allow local renewables to continue generating and exporting energy at times when that zero carbon electricity, and any associated income, would otherwise have been lost. Further, as the RaaS Service Provider would have the capability to participate in other flexibility markets, the battery could be used to provide other network services, and support wider policy aims.
In addition to demonstrating the technical concept, the project will develop the commercial framework for RaaS – evaluating the financial case from a DNO perspective and assessing the investment case for RaaS service providers with options for revenue stacking in other flexibility services markets.
The first phase of the project focused on site selection, system design for the demonstration site, and refinement of the business case for RaaS to validate the technical feasibility and financial viability of the concept. Following a positive stage gate decision informed by stakeholder engagement, the project has now moved into the trial phase. This will see installation of a 3 MW, 3MWh RaaS system to support the 11kV network at the selected site, with operation over the trial period used to evaluate and verify the technical capability of the scheme.
