News

Neuville related announcements, activities and events of interest.

2022

22 Apr 2022 – (London) Bright Renewables has engaged Neuville to do some solar PV farm unplanned outage risk modeling.  Their managing director wants to understand their worst-case risk exposure and what prudent steps they can take to mitigate the financial risk from unexpected equipment failure.

08 Apr 2022 – London South Bank University’s School of Engineering and its new Innovation Centre has recently partnered with Neuville, co-funding a 3-year post-doctoral research fellow position undertaking a research and enterprise investigations of machine learning analysis of electrical data.

03 Mar 2022 – With support from Neuville, our research partners at London South Bank University, Frederick University, and Queen Mary University of London, have published a new paper in the journal Energies entitled, “Performance Analysis and Benchmarking of PLL-Driven Phasor Measurement Units for Renewable Energy Systems.”  The paper investigates the use of a phase-locked loop (PLL)-based algorithms for Phasor Measurement Units (PMUs) to accurately determine magnitude, phase, and frequency in a three-phase electrical system.

28 Jan 2022 – Neuville’s managing director Clarke Simmons took part in the Energy Networks Association (ENA) Innovation Strategies Workshop 2022 with a particular interest in the data and digitalisation work group.

17 Jan 2022 – Final report published by the Energy Digitalisation Taskforce led by Chair Laura Sandys CBE with the support of the Energy Systems Catapult (ESC), BEIS, Innovate UK and Ofgem.  Neuville’s Clarke Simmons was a contributing member of the taskforce.  This government-industry-community taskforce built upon the prior work of the Energy Data Taskforce that Clarke also contributed to.

2021

23 Dec 2021 – (London) Bluefield Solar has engaged Neuville Grid Data and their partner Doble Engineering to conduct a transformer fleet health assessment. Bluefield wants to apply the latest methods of assessing and monitoring electrical transformer health. Key aims include avoiding premature failures, ensuring reliable site operations, and optimising/enhancing the delivery of solar energy.

18 Dec 2021 – (London) Neuville Grid Data has won another contract to provide its high-scrutiny condition monitoring services to a small 1.0 MWpdc solar farm near London.  What makes this project special, is at client request Neuville will be leading efforts to increase its solar capacity, add energy storage, enable microgrid capabilities, introduce some wind power, and possibly incorporate EV charging nearby.  Making it a full scope demonstration of Neuville’s capabilities.

01 Nov 2021 – Analogue-to-Digital expert Sebastian Szczupak BSc MSc has joined Neuville as a Senior Electronics Engineer.  He was formerly with Ocado doing robot development and before that Oxford Instruments.

19 Oct 2021 – (Coventry) Four members of Neuville’s technology development team attended the Engineering Design Show

15 Oct 2021 – James Wylie PhD has joined the Neuville team as an Electrical Power Systems Engineer.  Formerly with EirGrid and Siemens, his Imperial College London dissertation was on high-voltage power converters.

6-9 Oct 2021 – (Munich) Neuville’s MD Clarke Simmons attended the InterSolar / Electrical Energy Storage exhibition.

30 Sep – 01 Oct 2021 – (Amsterdam) Three members of the Neuville team attended the TNW conference.

24 Sep 2021 – (London) Neuville’s Head of Network Deployment Operations Matt Hanley and MD Clarke Simmons attended technical and commercial working group meetings of the Solar Energy UK (SEUK) trade association.

08 Sep 2021 – (Rotterdam) From hundreds of applications, Neuville has been selected one of 5 finalists in the scale-up track of Shell’s New Energy Challenge. We are excited by the possibility of helping Shell’s Renewables and Energy Solutions business unit enhance their asset performance with our innovative condition monitoring technology.

26 Aug 2021 – A Neuville research article on “Solar farm voltage anomaly detection using high-resolution μPMU data-driven unsupervised machine learning” has been published in the prominent journal Applied Energy and selected for a conference Best Paper Award.

03 Aug 2021 – Dame Fiona Woolf DBE DStJ DL has joined Neuville Grid Data as a Board advisor.  Neuville’s Head of Finance, Jessica François, remarked, “Her experience and accomplishments are not only impressive but also personally inspiring to me.  It’s an honour to have a woman of Dame Fiorna’s profile and calibre join our Advisory Board.”

An energy and infrastructure lawyer, Dame Fiona has extensive experience with electricity market design, implementation, regulation, and major projects.  Much of her recent work has been with the World Bank, foreign governments, National Grid ESO, UK Power Networks, and other entities on regional markets, technical innovation, and infrastructure.  At CMS Cameron McKenna she built an innovative legal practice in energy market reform and infrastructure projects that combines law, engineering, and economics.  She had a formative role in privatising the UK’s electric power sector and creation of the Grid Code.

Dame Fiona was the Lord Mayor of London for the year 2013/14 as the 686th Lord Mayor, and only the second woman to hold the role since 1189.  She was made a Dame Commander of the British Empire (DBE) in 2015.

10 July 2021 – (London) Neuville Grid Data Ltd has closed its second round of early stage EIS private equity funding. Nicely oversubscribed, it raised a further £506k from existing and new investors to fund company growth and technology development.

07 July 2021 – Ofgem is undertaking a useful reform of the UK power grid’s Balancing Services Use of System (BSUoS) charges. BSUoS charges are how the Energy System Operator (ESO) recovers costs associated with balancing the electricity transmission system.  BSUoS charges recover several costs, which include: the costs of constraints, frequency response services, provision of reserve, the costs of actions taken in the Balancing Mechanism and the ESO’s internal costs.  BSUoS charges are currently recovered from demand customers and generators based on the amount of energy imported from or exported onto the network (£/MWh) within each half-hour period.  It appears they are looking to move these charges to “final demand.”  Such a change would help clear the way for increased energy storage and other distributed energy resources on the grid.

08 June 2021 – Neuville Grid Data has been accepted into the Innovate UK EDGE growth support programme.  Funded by UKRI, the Innovate 2 Succeed programme will provide Neuville specialist support to help improve its innovation management capacity and scale up its growth.

01 June 2021 – Becky Bernardini Fouche BSc MSc has been appointed a Neuville Technology Safeguard Director & Board Advisor.  She brings over 25-years of investigative, cyber-security, commercial, and technical expertise to Neuville.  Former executive director at data telemetry hardware company DataRemote; former global director of PwC’s network information security; Industrial Security Officer at US Special Operations Command; 18-years US Air Force special agent investigator.  London Business School MSc 2012.

12 May 2021 – Neuville’s managing director Clarke Simmons took part in the launch of the Energy Digitalisation Taskforce led by Chair Laura Sandys CBE with the support of the Energy Systems Catapult (ESC), BEIS, Innovate UK and Ofgem.  This new government-industry-community taskforce will build upon the prior work of the Energy Data Taskforce that Clarke also contributed to.

08 May 2021 – There is a new joint CIGRE/IEEE working group JWG: C4/C2.62/IEEE: Review of Advancements in Synchrophasor Measurement Applications and Neuville’s Clarke Simmons is to be a UK corresponding member.

28 April 2021 – Katherine Jackson CEng BSc MEng MIET has joined Neuville’s Technical Advisory Board.  A chartered engineer, Katherine has over 30 years’ experience in electrical power systems development.  Career: Cegelec as Head of Power Systems and Protection Group, 1991-1995; Parsons Brinckerhoff as Power Systems Group Manager 1996-2009 & Director, Power Systems 2009-2015; and WSP as Technical Director, Energy 2015-2020.  At WSP, she drove technical excellence and innovation across up to 350 staff in their UK Energy business.  With Parsons Brinckerhoff, she was responsible for the business, strategic, operational, commercial, and technical leadership of up to 30 electrical engineers across 5 offices with expertise in traditional power system planning, modelling and analysis, and low-carbon smart grid innovation.  Education: BSc and Master of Engineering in Electrical Engineering, University of Manchester 1987; Chartered Engineer, Member of Institution of Engineering and Technology 1993.  For her full bio please visit the Management Team page.

23 March 2021 – Ofgem released a planning document for its new 5-year £450 million RIIO-2 Strategic Innovation Fund they prepared with UK Research and Innovation and the Carbon Trust.  It identifies, Data and digitalisation will be key enablers to a flexible, decarbonized energy system.  Neuville Grid Data is already addressing this core challenge, with its high-quality digital data, versatile system approach and is looking forward to being part of this exciting programme.

19 March 2021 – National Grid unexpectedly acquired Western Power Distribution (WPD) for £7.9 billion.  Detailed announcement and Bloomberg article.

23 February 2021 – (London) Neuville responded to Ofgem’s consultation on the RIIO-2 NIA Governance Document

02 February 2021 – Alexandra “Sascha” von Meier PhD has joined Neuville as a Technical Advisor.  An esteemed leader in our field, Sascha is an Adjunct Professor in the Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science at the University of California Berkeley, where she teaches a course on Electric Power Systems. Extensively published, she is also Electric Grid program area Director at the California Institute for Energy and Environment (CIEE) , focusing on power distribution systems, Smart Grid issues, and the integration of distributed and intermittent generation.  Her current research projects center on the use of high-precision micro-synchrophasor measurements for situational awareness, diagnostics and control applications in distribution grids.  Education: BA Physics, UC Berkeley 1986; MA Energy and Resources, UC Berkeley 1990; PhD, Energy and Resources, UC Berkeley 1995.  American, married.

13 January 2021 – Neuville Grid Data has been granted its cornerstone patent, GB2579156 – Methods and apparatus for the sensing, collecting, transmission, storage, and dissemination of high-resolution power grid electrical measurement data by inventor Clarke V Simmons.

06 January 2021 – (London) Neuville contibuted a response to the BEIS public consultation on the National Security and Investment Act 2021 before Parliament.

2020

11 December 2020 – Steve Mahon PhD has stepped down from Neuville’s Board to concentrate on his growing role at Mura Technology.  The Board thanks Steve for his service and support since the Company’s inception.

08-09 December 2020 – Neuville team members attended portions of the virtual Low Carbon Networks & Innovation Conference (LCNI)

27 Nov 2020 –  Innovate UK has competitively selected Neuville to receive a 50% extension to its Sustainable Innovation Fund grant.  Funding will support further development and trials of utility-scale (>1 MWp) solar farm condition monitoring and fault reporting tools that help support remote work by O&M technicians.

22 Nov 2020 – Neuville is featured in the “Highlights of recent projects” section of Energy Systems Catapult’s Annual Impact Review 2019-2020.

13 Oct 2020 – Neuville’s Data Mining Lead Dr Maitreyee Dey presented her paper, High-resolution data-driven anomalous event detection from solar farm data using clustering large applications based upon randomized search CUE2020-D-034 at the Applied Energy Symposium 2020

23 Sep 2020 – Jessica Francois BSc MBA MSc CMA, has joined Neuville to be its new Head of Finance. She has over 18 years of senior international experience leading strategic financial operations of billion-dollar industrial business units within companies such as Bombardier Aerospace. Accounting BSc & London Business School Sloan MSc 2020.

05 Sep 2020 – The US is approaching a crosspoint of trends as declining coal is surpassed by rising renewables providing 20% of US electric power production in 2020 according to US EIA estimates.

02 Sep 2020  –  Neuville’s Maitreyee Dey PhD and Clarke Simmons have been invited to present their paper, High-resolution data-driven anomalous event detection from solar farm data using clustering large applications based upon randomized search D-034 at the CUE2020 Applied Energy Symposium: Low Carbon Cities and Urban Energy Systems 10-17 Oct 2020 in Tokyo/Virtual Conference.

01 Sep 2020 – (Paris) At the CIGRE 2020 e-Session, Neuville’s Data Mining Lead Maitreyee Dey PhD and Managing Director Clarke Simmons MSc, made a short presentation on their technical paper, High-Resolution Condition Monitoring of Transformers at UK Solar Farms Using Micro-Synchrophasors A2-104.  The full paper will be published in the CIGRE conference proceedings.

15 Jul 2020 – (London) Dassault Systemes has selected Neuville to be part of its SOLIDWORKS for Entrepreneur programme.  Neuville will be receiving training and free software licenses for the full range of SOLIDWORKS CAD/CAM engineering design and simulation software.

02 Jul 2020 – Innovate UK has competitively selected Neuville to receive a £49k research grant from the Sustainable Innovation Fund.  Funding will go towards development of improved utility-scale (>1 MWp) solar farm condition monitoring and report tools that help support remote work by O&M technicians.

01 Jul 2020 – (London) Maitreyee Dey PhD has joined the Neuville team as its Data Mining Lead.  She brings a wealth of experience and skill with machine learning (ML) artificial intelligence (AI) processing of electrical system big data.

30 Jun 2020 – (London) Again working with London South Bank University’s School of Engineering, Neuville has been selected to receive £28,429 (€31,056) in funding support from the Low Carbon London (LCLDN) programme which is part-financed by the European Union’s European Regional Development Fund (ERDF).  The funds will be applied toward a PhD level applied development position investigating artificial intelligence machine learning analysis of high-resolution electrical data.

05 May 2020 – (London) Neuville received a £5,000 local business support grant from the Southwark Council.

12 Apr 2020 – (Norfolk England) On Easter Sunday heavy thunderstorms rolled across East Anglia.  A long flurry of electrical events occurred late that afternoon across the distribution grid.  At the 8.0 MW Kenninghall solar farm, a Neuville Grid Data Unit (GDU) captured an amazing spike in electrical Flicker Pinst that reached a maximum reading of 17,568.9 compared with typical maximum daily site reading of less than 1.0  The site’s O&M technician was otherwise unaware of this potentially damaging event.

01 Apr 2020 – (Bedfordshire & Norfolk England) Neuville installations of its ‘alpha1’ Grid Data Units (GDU) at the 13.2MW Langford Solar Farm in Bedfordshire and the 8.0MW Kenninghall Solar Farm in Norfolk achieve initial operational capability (IOC).

31 Mar 2020 – (London) Working with the School of Engineering at London South Bank University, Neuville has been selected to receive €10,753 in funding support from the Greentech Access to Innovation (A2i) programme which is part-financed by the European Union’s European Regional Development Fund (ERDF).  The funds will be applied toward investigating artificial intelligence machine learning analysis of high-resolution electrical data.

30 Mar 2020 – (London) Neuville has closed its first round of external equity funding.  A total of £672,000 was raised from individual UK investors through the tax advantaged Enterprise Investment Scheme (EIS).

02 Mar 2020 – (London) Neuville moves into its new workspaces at 25 Lavington St, London SE1 0NZ

20 Jan 2020 – Matthew P Hanley has joined Neuville as its new Head of Network Deployment and Operations.   Having just completed an MBA type program at London Business School, Matt brings an amazing background of technical programme delivery in energy infrastructure, aviation and military sectors.  Take a look at his bio here.

2019

12-14 Nov 2019 – (Paris) Clarke V Simmons, Neuville’s Managing Director attended the PowerGen Europe Conference.

30-31 Oct 2019 – (Glasgow) Neuville was once again at the UK electric power sector’s prime innovation event — the Low Carbon Networks & Innovation (LCNI) conference.  At the conference Neuville’s MD Clarke Simmons signed an engineering services support contract with Burns & McDonnell Europe (UK).

23 Oct 2019 – A group of researchers at Doble Engineering, London South Bank University, Armstrong Energy, and Neuville Grid Data, have proposed a CIGRE paper entitled “High Resolution Condition Monitoring of Transformers at five UK Solar Farms using micro-synchrophasors.” It has been accepted for development into a full paper submission as part of the UK National Committee’s allocation.  Once accepted by the Study Committee it will be entered into the conference proceedings and presented at the Paris CIGRE Session in August 2020.

16-17 October 2019 – (Coventry) At the Engineering Design Show, Neuville’s Clarke Simmons scouted out UK electronics supply chain options for components, assembly, and small volume manufacturing support of Neuville’s Grid Data Units (GDUs).

08 October 2019 – (Bristol) Neuville’s Clarke Simmons took part in the Western Power Distribution – Distributed Generation Owner Operator Forum.

01 October 2019 – Steve Mahon PhD, the Managing Director of Armstrong Capital, is joining Neuville’s Board.  Neuville’s founder Clarke Simmons remarked, “I have known, worked with, and trusted Steve for many years and am grateful he is making time to be a non-executive company director.”  Robin Chamberlayne of Gloucestershire will be Steve’s alternate.  Robin brings a wealth of knowledge regarding growth company fund raising.

02 September 2019 – For its series SME Stories, the Energy Systems Catapult (ESC) interviewed Neuville’s founder Clarke Simmons.  See the story here.

04 July 2019 — (Birmingham) Clarke Simmons from Neuville attended the CIGRE seminar on “The Challenges of Connecting Electric Vehicles to the Grid.”

01 July 2019 — Neuville Grid Data to enhance the performance of eight large UK solar farms

Neuville has signed contracts deploy Neuville Grid Data Units (GDU) on eight solar farms across England that are managed by Armstrong Energy.  An increase of three mores sites to those announced in January.  The GDUs will enable the performance enhancement of these solar farms through innovative, high-resolution electrical condition monitoring.

The high-quality data Neuville supplies Armstrong’s technical operations team should enable performance enhancements that increase net power generation up to 3%, reduce O&M costs 1-3%, avoid costly unscheduled outages, and generally improves EBIT bottom-line profits plus extend the asset’s economic operating life 1-2 years.

Digitalization’s uplifting effects on solar power generation include: high-resolution remote condition monitoring, cost-saving condition based predictive maintenance, operational tuning, pre-fault outage avoidance, technical loss mitigation, etc.

Installations on the following UK pilot sites totalling 32.0 MWp are now undergoing Engineering, Procurement, and Commissioning (EPC) activities. Equipment fitting and system commissioning will start in the latter half of 2019.  These utility-scale solar photovoltaic power generation sites feature both large central inverters and string inverters.

Langford Solar Farm, Bedfordshire 13.2 MWp
Kenninghall Solar Farm, Norfolk 8.0 MWp
Pond Farm Solar Farm, Norfolk 3.6 MWp
King’s Lynn, Norfolk 1.7 MWp
Wroxton Solar Farm, Oxfordshire 1.8 MWp
Taunton Racecourse, Somerset 1.7 MWp
Fen Road Solar Farm, Lincolnshire 1.4 MWp
Briddlesford Lodge Farm, Isle of Wight 0.6 MWp

Four more solar farms under Armstrong Energy’s management may be added pending agreement with the asset owner.  Discussions are underway with other UK, French, and Irish solar farm managers.

20 June 2019 – (London) Robert Brown and Clarke Simmons from Neuville attended the always interesting WPD Balancing Act Conference.

23 May 2019 — (London) Robert Brown, Neuville Research Associate & London Southbank University PhD candidate, and Clarke Simmons, attended a day of training by NAREC organized by the Solar Trade Association (STA).  The training addressed the unfolding change from the ENA EREC G59 to G99 British grid connection technical standards plus procedures for grid connection applications and protection.  G99 requirements being quite important to the development and operation of solar PV plants, wind farms, and energy storage installations bigger than 3.68kW (16A per phase).  A key change being the change in protection settings from the vector-shift to RoCoF methodology.  The training also addressed G100 and the changes from G83 to G98 for smaller grid connected sites under 3.68kW.

21-22 May 2019 — (Birmingham) in attendance again at this year’s  Utility Week Live conference was Neuville’s MD Clarke Simmons.

16 May 2019 — (Munich) Neuville’s MD Clarke Simmons attended this year’s Smarter-E conference – which combines the long-running InterSolar convention, an Energy Storage Technologies (EES) exhibition, and an Electric Vehicle (EV) conference into one large gathering.

28 April 2018 — As a recognized innovator, Neuville Grid Data has invited to join the UK’s Solar Trade Association (STA) [subsequently renamed SEUK].  Neuville’s MD remarked, “We are honoured to become an STA member.  Being part of STA will help us improve and deliver our solar farm enhancement services.”

26 April 2019 — An interesting excerpt from a March 2019 UK National Statistics report on electric power generation. Huge increase in renewable energy over the last 10-years. Correspondingly dramatic decrease in coal fired power generation. Progress is being made…

21 March 2019 — (London) The CIGRE seminar on UK Energy Systems Resilience saw Clarke Simmons from Neuville in attendance.

17 February 2019 — BP’s Energy Outlook for 2019 has many interesting insights around electric vehicles, improved transport fuel efficiency, and reducing single-use plastics.  Their graph showing the relative growth forecast for renewable energy “fueled” electric power generation is particularly interesting.  Neuville’s technology will help make the orange renewables power generation line become reality.

BP’s annual analysis and forecast of energy economic trends is very well regarded. Neuville’s MD, Clarke Simmons used to work for BP plc so there might be a touch of favoritism in this post.

17 January 2019 — Neuville Grid Data to enhance the performance of five utility-scale UK solar farms

Neuville has reached agreement with Armstrong Energy to deploy Neuville Grid Data Units (GDU) on five solar farms across England.  The GDUs will enable the performance enhancement of these solar farms through innovative, high-resolution electrical condition monitoring.

The high-quality data Neuville supplies Armstrong’s technical operations team, will enable performance enhancements that increase net power generation up to 3%, reduce O&M costs 1-3%, and generally improves EBIT bottom-line profits plus extend the asset’s economic operating life 1-2 years.

Digitalization’s uplifting effects on solar power generation include: greatly improved remote asset status monitoring, cost-saving condition based predictive maintenance, operational tuning, pre-fault outage avoidance, technical loss mitigation, etc.

The following UK pilot sites totaling 28.0 MWp have been selected.  Equipment installations and system commissioning will start in Q2 of 2019.  These utility-scale (>1 MW) sites feature standard types of large central inverters and ground mount photovoltaic panels.

Fen Road Solar Farm, Lincolnshire 1.4 MWp
Langford Solar Farm, Bedfordshire 13.2 MWp
Kenninghall Solar Farm, Norfolk 8.0 MWp
Pond Farm Solar Farm, Norfolk 3.6 MWp
Wroxton Solar Farm, Oxfordshire 1.8 MWp

Three additional solar farms Armstrong asset-manages will be added subject to engineering site surveys and further agreement with the asset owners.  Advanced discussions are underway with other UK solar farm managers.

Armstrong Energy™ specializes in the development, acquisition, and operation of power projects that provide a stable yield for our investors from the sale of electricity or heat.  They have invested over £300 million into energy infrastructure.
www.armstrongenergy.co.uk

15 January 2019 — Robert Brown has joined the Neuville team as a Research Associate. A Smart Grids researcher, Robert is investigating distribution transformer efficiency as part of his PhD studies at London South Bank University. His experimental work includes solar photovoltaic power inverters and the application of micro-synchrophasors (µPMU) to transformer condition monitoring.  Robert received his MEng (Hons) degree in Electrical Engineering and Power Electronics from London South Bank University in 2017. Previously he worked as an electrician in the renewables, controls and maintenance sectors after receiving City and Guilds qualifications in 2007. He has been published in the areas of Energy Disaggregation, Power Electronics, and Applications of Ultra-Wideband Radar.

08 January 2019 — (London) Neuville’s MD, Clarke Simmons, took part in the Energy Data Task Force stakeholder workshop led by the Energy Systems Catapult (ESC) on behalf of HM Government, Ofgem, industry and other stakeholders.

2018

22 November 2018 — (Uxbridge) Mike Fedosiuk and Clarke Simmons from Neuville attended the Brunel Digital Science & Technology Hub Launch event at Brunel University.

30 October 2018 — (London) The Power Potential Research Project Event organized by National Grid ESO and UK Power Networks saw Mike Fedosiuk and Clarke Simmons in attendance.

25 October 2018 — (Paris) Neuville’s MD, Clarke Simmons, attended the  Smart Energy Seminar at the British Embassy in Paris.

22-23 October 2018 — (Manchester) at the EuroDoble Colloquium, Neuville’s Mike Fedosiuk and London South Bank University’s Robert Brown made a presentation on solar farm transformer losses and new condition monitoring techniques.

18 October 2018 – (Coventry) At the Engineering Design Show, Neuville’s Clarke Simmons and Mike Fedosiuk scouted out UK electronics supply chain options for components, assembly, and small volume manufacturing support of Neuville’s Grid Data Units (GDUs).

16-17 October 2018 – At this years LCNI conference, in Telford England, Neuville’s Clarke Simmons and Mike Fedosiuk had productive meetings with innovation teams across the UK power sector including representatives of UKPN, SSE, WPD, Electricity North West, and National Grid ESO.

19 September 2018 — Chris Gentile joins Neuville’s Advisory Board.  A US Air Force Test Pilot with degrees in aeronautical, astronautical, andflight test engineering, Chris brings a broad range of technical, manufacturing, programme management, and practical experience to the Neuville team.  He has lead development, test, and integration projects on the F-22 stealth fighter and MQ-9 drones as well as multiple cybersecurity programs and a secondment with DARPA.  A Command Pilot with over two-thousand flight hours in F16C, F15E and F22 high-performance aircraft, Chris is driven to improve the interface between humans and the tools we interact with.  An expert in measurement and testing, he has experience leading organizations both large and small, and is excited to join Neuville Grid Data as they advance the state of the art in energy monitoring and analysis.

10 September 2018 — Neuville releases some results from its market analysis of utility-scale UK solar farms.

Due to progressive government incentive programmes, the UK solar market boomed in just a few years to over 12GW of peak energy generation capacity across residential, commercial and utility scale installations.

A Neuville Grid Data analysis of Ofgem and BEIS’ July 2018 records, shows there were 1,125 utility-scale British solar photovoltaic (PV) farms larger than 1MW with a combined capacity of 8,307 MW.  Large numbers of sites are rated at just under 5MW to meet a subsidy threshold.  Statistically the median UK solar farm is 5.0MW and the average 7.4MW.  Of these 1,125 sites, 470 are between 3.4MW and 5.8MW totalling 2.25GW of rated capacity or 4.8MW on average.

In the year thru March 2018, 1,019 of these sites with a combined capacity of 7,802 MW generated approximately 7,081 GWh. Load factors run around 11%.  A very rough rule of thumb is subsidy supported sites gross around £100k/y per MW of capacity.

The trend is toward larger British solar farms. As of July 2018, some 211 new UK solar farms are in the planning process and ten more are under construction for a total proposed 1.93GW with an increased average size of 8.7MW.  Although many of these will never get built, it indicates a clear trend.

Following world-wide declining cost trends, staring in 2019 we are likely to see more reduced CAPEX/kWp investment, subsidy free, “grid parity” solar PV farm extensions being built on already electrically active “bluefield” sites in Britain with greenfield opportunities sometime later.

3 September 2018 — (London) Neuville’s Head of Network Development, Mike Fedosiuk, participated in ENA‘s Open Networks: Future Worlds Consultation in London.

01 September 2018 — Sir Geoffrey Chipperfield K.C.B. joins Neuville’s Advisory Board.  An Oxford graduate in law, Sir Geoffrey brings a lifetime of experience in the UK energy sector and related Government policy. Highpoints of his Government service include Permanent Secretary, UK Department of Energy 1989-91 and Chairman of Governors, International Energy Agency, 1989-91. Post-government service, he served as a director of several utilities and industrial groups. He was Pro-Chancellor, University of Kent 1999-2006 and is a Council Member of the Foundation of Science and Technology.  Neuville is honoured to benefit from Sir Geoffrey’s insights and expert advice.

26-31 August 2018 — (Paris) Neuville’s managing director Clarke Simmons attended CIGRE’s big biennal global conference on electric power innovation in Paris.  The CIGRE UK delegation’s reception sponsored by our friends at Burns & McDonnell, TNEI, Siemens, and National Grid was a real highlight.

3-4 July 2018 – (Birmingham) Neuville has been selected to take part in a 2-day Energy Systems Catapult (ESC)  workshop for SMEs.

28 June 2018 – (London) Mike Fedosiuk and Clarke Simmons of Neuville had an interesting half-day at the ENA Electricity Innovation Forum, London.

26-27 Jun 2018 – (Glasgow) Neuville’s MD, Clarke Simmons, attended 2-days of technical presentations at the Power Networks Demonstration Centre (PNDC) in Cumbernauld near Glasgow Scotland.  Fellow attendees at the PNDC quarterly “Theme Meeting” represented Vodafone, Cisco, Scottish Power Energy Networks, Scottish & Southern Electricity Networks, and UK Power Networks.  Neuville Grid Data is a new PNDC Associate Member.  PNDC Overview Video

20 June 2018 – (London) Neuville’s Head of Network Development, Mike Fedosiuk,  attended  Western Power Distribution’s Balancing Act conference, London.

7-9 Jun 2018 – (Prague) Clarke Simmons will be in Prague attending a Power Standards conference.

7 Jun 2018 – (Liverpool) Neuville has been invited to make a private presentation to members of the Energy Innovation Centre at their offices in Ellesmere Port near Liverpool.  Technical and innovation leaders from Scottish Power Energy Networks, Scottish & Southern Electricity Networks, Northern PowerGrid, and UK Power Networks are expected.

28 May 2018 – Neuville has been invited to may a technical presentation on solar farm transformer losses and high-resolution diagnostics 22-24 Oct 2018 at the EuroDoble Colloquium in Manchester England.

22-23 May 2018 – Neuville exhibited at the Energy Innovation Centre (EIC) booth at the Utility Week Live 2018 conference in Birmingham.  Neuville make its debut presentation at the EIC: Big Energy Pitch first-thing Tuesday morning.

13 Apr 2018 – The UK’s Energy Innovation Centre (EIC) has competitively selected Neuville Grid Data™ and its innovative Big Data capabilities to exhibit alongside its members and make a presentation at the Utility Week Live conference in Birmingham 22-23 May 2018.

22 Mar 2018 – (London) Neuville attended the OFGEM RIIO2 electric power regulatory planning event in London.

21 Mar 2018 – National Grid has competitively selected and short-listed for further evaluation a Network Innovation Allowance (NIA) proposal from Neuville Grid Data™ regarding Understanding Rate of Change of Frequency (RoCoF). RoCoF is related to growing problems on the UK power grid with vector-shift and disruptive G59 trip-out shedding of inverter connected distributed electricity generation like solar PV and wind farms. Neuville’s innovative high-resolution data gathering capabilities can help National Grid better characterize RoCoF problems and find solutions.

12 Feb 2018 – Armstrong Energy has contracted with Neuville Grid Data™ to help enhance the performance of their solar farm portfolio totaling 138MWp across 35 sites in England and Scotland.

6 Jan 2018 – Power Standards Lab (PSL) and Neuville Grid Data™ have reached a value-added reselling (VAR) and hardware distribution agreement.  Neuville will be PSL’s Primary Distributor and Value Added Reseller (VAR) for the electric power sector.

2017

13 Dec 2017 – An Energy Systems Catapult (ESC) selection panel, including experts from the University of Strathclyde, Scottish and Southern Energy, Scottish Power and UK Power Networks, competitively selected Neuville’s hardware technology for an 11kV testbed demonstration at the Power Networks Demonstration Centre (PNDC) near Glasgow Scotland. Neuville Grid Data™ has been selected to collaborate with in preliminary network testing on key challenges identified by ESC’s Future Power System Architecture (FPSA) programme.

6-7 Dec 2017 – (Telford) Attended the Low Carbon Networks & Innovation Conference (LCNI) in Telford England.

24 Nov 2017 – (Birmingham) Neuville participated in OFGEM‘s Smart Futures Event – Facilitating the Energy Transition Event in Birmingham.

23 Nov 2017 – (London) Neuville’s Clarke Simmons participated in the Energy Networks Association (ENA) Stakeholder Workshop in London.

21 Nov 2017 – (London) Neuville attended the Energy Technologies Institute’s 10-years of innovation event in London.

8 Nov 2017 – (Warwick) Neuville was in the audience at the CIGRE UK meeting in Warwick England hosted by National Grid.

31 Oct 2017 – (London) Attended OFGEM‘s State of the Market Report event in London.

18 Oct 2017 – (Birmingham) Attended CIGRE UK Evening Seminar: Solving Electricity Network Challenges in Birmingham.

12-15 Jun 2017 – (Glasgow) Neuville’s Clarke Simmons attended the CIRED conference in Glasgow Scotland. CIRED is a technical conference and membership organization focused on electricity distribution.

11 May 2017 – (London) Neuville attended WPD’s Balancing Act conference in London.

19 Apr 2017 – (Washington DC) Neuville’s Clarke Simmons participated in the U.S. Department of Energy Grid Modernization Initiative Peer Review in Washington DC.

2016

7-8 Dec 2016 – (San Francisco) Neuville was present at GreenTech Media‘s US Energy Storage Summit 2016 in San Francisco.

27-29 Sep 2016 – (Brussels) Neuville’s Clarke Simmons attended the Energy Storage Global Conference (ESGC) 2016, organized by European Association for Storage of Energy (EASE) in Brussels.