Preparing for New Approaches
An electricity network must be flexible in its outlook. As the quotation opposite suggests, comfortable continuity of existing supply and service can easily be regarded as the norm and yet an electricity network company must be ready to contend with:
- A growing regional economy bringing new industry, new customers and dictating growth.
- Economic activity attracting more population to drive machinery and handle produce.
- Technological change - that replaces traditional heating fuels with electrically fuelled equivalents. For example, the increased use of heat pumps.
- The vagaries of nature's extreme events.
The impact of economic growth in this region is well illustrated in the winery maximum demand graph in Our Network. Across New Zealand (and most of the world) we are all aware there is an economic recession and there is already some local impact on Marlborough Lines with a reduction in lines/underground reticulation as development within the province slows down. Fortunately though, the province appears to be less affected than other parts of New Zealand and there is reason for continuing optimism - as previous investment in agriculture (particularly viticulture) matures over the next few years.
The Government has decided that supply to remote rural areas (mostly installed in the 1960s and 70s) will remain, with supply being guaranteed. The inherent cost subsidy from urban to rural consumers will continue. Technological change dictates that at some stage in the near future this company will be required to connect small scale distributed generation (wind farms, small hydro and similar) to our network. Additionally, we foresee a time when many households will generate small amounts of electricity to be fed back into the local network system.
Electricity systems of the future will have to contend with electricity being introduced at many different points rather than, for example, the current Marlborough situation, where supply arrives at a single point of supply at Springlands in Blenheim and is then radiated outwards. Future systems will require a new approach for management and safety to allow for electricity to also be flowing inwards from the outer extremities of reticulation rather than solely outwards, as it does at present.