5G – how it could enable the digitalisation of Britain’s transmission networks

5G offers potential use cases and business benefits for National Grid and its electricity and gas transmission networks, a study from the Digital Catapult has found.

The latest generation of cellular technology, 5G is still emerging with its full potential yet to be determined with the performance improvements and other benefits it brings over its predecessors.

A ten-fold performance improvement over 4G is the one benefit most likely to be apparent to the average user. But there are others that are of value for businesses, such as the improved capability of cloud services and edge computing and network slicing, which offers among other use cases one of the options for establishing a private network.

(Note the widespread application of the immersive reality-based metaverse will need to await 6G).

Have you read?
Smart5Grid – the 5G smart grid use cases
Webinar recording: The cellular (r)evolution accelerating smart metering: LPWAN, 5G and eSIM

With these benefits there also may appear added security concerns but unlike the earlier cellular generations, 5G was designed with ‘secure by design’ principles with security measures built in. Indeed the security flaws that have been found have been attributed to the mobile operator implementation.

Nevertheless as with any communications system the security architecture needs to be end-to-end with external applications secured independently.

5G has been trialled extensively in distribution networks, e.g. in Sweden, Ireland and China, and for individual use cases, such as smart substation monitoring, but so far there have been no or possibly few trials at the transmission network level.

5G transmission system use cases

The study, ‘5G – Art of the Possible’, was undertaken by the Digital Catapult, the government digital innovation agency, in collaboration with National Grid Electricity Transmission (ET) to explore the potential of 5G as an enabling platform for the digitalisation of the electricity and gas transmissions networks as a means of delivering on the UK’s net zero targets.

The study identifies “a long list” of use cases that 5G could bring, focussing in on those with high value based on a digital workflow offering additional data insights, greater efficiencies and opportunities to accelerate the deployment of innovative technologies.

These, with respective trials, are proposed in four main categories. One of these, which pertains to 5G service deployment, is communications resilience with the need for fast restoration in order to maintain communications service during power outages or other disruptions.

The trial would utilise a pop-up 5G network on wheels, which can be moved between sites to provide a temporary service.

The other categories, which pertain to how 5G services can be used, are asset monitoring and management, workforce management digitalisation including field worker support and training and SCADA.

In these cases the trial assets are still to be defined. For the asset management use case, the selected asset(s) would ideally already have a communication capability, while in that of the SCADA use case the detail of the equipment at the test site is unknown.

The workforce management digitalisation trial is proposed to focus on maintenance and inspection, potentially in two phases, one with mobile device video streaming and a second with a virtual reality headset.

The study reports that of these use cases, the most significant continuous benefit comes from workforce management digitalisation with an estimated £14.4 million (US$17.2 million) annually.

With a significant capital plan, construction is a critical workstream, particularly across the gas network, and with better workforce management at these sites there could be a £10 million ($12.2 million) saving.

Further, fines could be up to £10 million lower by being able to provide better asset management data.

Overall £103 million ($125.4 million) savings are estimated over five years. And more savings could be quantified if the baseline costs of different workflows and processes become available in the future.

Long term destination

The study concludes that the development of 5G capabilities would open up a wide range of benefits across the electricity and gas transmission networks and that it can provide the long term future-proof communication foundation required across them.

However, beyond trials there are several longer term directions that National Grid could take, based on the level of direct involvement in operating its networked services.

For example, National Grid could operate the services using its own infrastructure and resources.

Alternatively, National Grid could turn over provision of 5G to a 3rd party provider and continues to use its own infrastructure and resources, or it could contract with an organisation that is dedicated to providing services to the energy sector.