Developments in intelligent switchgear solutions to help meet sustainability goals

With climate change affecting every country, utilities need to manage the changing generation mix, whilst still ensuring security of supply and maintaining affordability for the consumers. This requires more detailed, accurate and real-time information of power networks as well as more responsive control local to the distributed energy resources. Monitoring and control technologies for MV and LV electricity networks provide a positive impact on decarbonisation, quality of service and the financial efficiency of these networks. This paper reviews the recent technological advances in localised monitoring and control of power distribution networks and how they help provide the flexibility to support efficient integration of low carbon technologies. Additionally, the potential services that can be leveraged by the utility in meeting their sustainability goals and the future preparedness of the network are also discussed.