IET Visit to National Grid Control Centre

National Grid owns and maintains the high-voltage electricity transmission system in England and Wales, together with operating the system across Great Britain, balancing supply with demand on a minute by minute basis. The visit will provide an overview of the how the power system is managed and the challenges that lie ahead.
The afternoon will begin with a presentation on how National Grid utilises generation to manage the power system on a day to day basis. This will include an overview of the key aspects of National Grid’s role in ensuring safety, security of supply, and real time balancing of the power system.
There will be an opportunity to visit the viewing gallery of the National Grid control room, which in itself is an impressive example of how key infrastructure is managed in real time. National Grid will explain about some of the tools being used and its real time approach.
The final presentation will focus on how the power system will evolve in the future as the generation mix changes.
Organised by The IET Power Generation, Conversion and Utilisation Network

Iain McIntosh -

Heading a team responsible for identifying requirement for future balancing services and developing risk management strategies for future system operations. My team is also responsible for the development of models associated with various commercial regimes such as system operator incentives schemes. I represent National Grid on ENTSO-E RES (Renewable Energy Sources) Working Group, which identifies the impact of increasing renewable generation in Europe. Previous to this I was on the drafting team for congestion management codes, which was tasked with harmonising the approach to congestion management and capacity allocation across ENTSO-E

Sam Matthews -

Sam Matthews is a Power Systems Engineer with 20+ years of experience. He currently manages a department with around 50+ Engineers and Analysts. He is also the Convenor of an ENTSO-E team looking at Winter and Summer Outlook security of power systems at a European Level.