NGED advisory board aims to push network innovation beyond pilot stage

National Grid Electricity Distribution is planning to establish an independent Innovation Advisory Board, in a move intended to give an external challenge to how the distribution network operator develops, tests and scales new ideas.

The company said the board would bring together independent expertise from across industry, technology and academia. The ultimate aim is to shape future innovation priorities and keep them focused on practical outcomes for customers, communities and the wider energy system.

It’s a similar move to one announced just the other day by National Grid Electricity Transmission. That saw NGET partner with ten universities to work on grid innovation, with the key aim of adapting promising research into actual real-world, deployable results. 

That last point matters. Network innovation has no shortage of trials, demonstrators and carefully branded projects. The harder part is converting useful learning into ordinary network practice: connection processes, planning assumptions, asset management, flexibility procurement, operational visibility and customer service.

Cordi O’Hara, President of National Grid Electricity Distribution, said the company did not see innovation as ‘running more pilots’, but as focusing on the challenges that matter most and scaling what works.

She said the new board would ‘challenge our thinking’ and help ensure NGED’s efforts remain focused on tangible benefits.

Of course, if the board remains advisory in the softest sense, the impact will be harder to see.

The areas to watch are therefore practical ones. Will the board have a clear role in testing whether projects can scale? Will it challenge duplication across innovation portfolios? Will it push successful ideas into procurement, standards, data systems and operational procedures? And will customers and connection applicants see any difference in how quickly good ideas become normal practice?

Laura Sandys CBE, Chair of the Energy Networks Innovation Taskforce, said there had “never been a more important time” to turn innovation into business as usual, while Phil Steele of Octopus Energy argued that innovation should be about challenging assumptions and scaling what works.

That is a fair benchmark. For all the language around collaboration, the value of this board will ultimately be judged by whether it helps NGED move from promising pilots to repeatable delivery.