Testing and validation of the ACCESS system

With the increasing penetration of distributed renewable generation being connected, a number of solutions have been developed to avoid network overloads. A number of the already implemented schemes are based on generation curtailment during times of high generation and low demand.

The ACCESS (Assisting Communities to Connect to Electric Sustainable Sources) system implements a more sophisticated predictive based solution. In the ACCESS system the generation resource and electrical demand is predicted and the storage heating resource is managed, providing a demand side management instead of a generation curtailment solution.

The ACCESS system was installed, tested and demonstrated in the Power Network Demonstration Centre (PNDC), a research facility that enables realistic testing of novel hardware and network operation schemes in a controlled environment, in 2015. Following the testing at the PNDC, the ACCESS system was deployed in the Isle of Mull, in 2016.

This paper reports on the outcome of the testing of the demand response features of the ACCESS system at the PNDC prior to its deployment on the Isle of Mull. This paper reports on: the different components of the system in detail (i.e. what it is designed to do and why); the test regime undertaken at the PNDC; the results of the testing (i.e. how effectively it achieves its design objectives); and the updates to the ACCESS system based on the testing with regards to the solutions employed and the benefits achieved.