The Impact of Sustainable Communities on Low Voltage Distribution Network

Economic Analysis

 

 

In order to understand the implications of these worst case scenarios as highlighted in the results section it was important to predict the economic impacts if such a scenario was to occur due to heavy deployment of Electric Vehicles or the electrification of the heating demand within the estate.

 

To carry this assessment forward, information was taken from the proceeding of the implementation steering group for ofgem produced by CE Electric UK (CE Electric UK, 2004). This data, albeit slightly out of date, gave the team some insight as to the costs of replacing cable infrastructure and upgrading the substations and a similar methodology and pricing structure has been adopted to carry out the analysis. Table1 demonstrates the costs and table 2 demonstrates the number of distribution systems.

 

 

 

Indicative Costs

Mains Cable

HV

£6,000

LV

£23,000

Service Costs

£10,000

Plant & Building & Civil

£18,000

Admin, Design, Jointing, Supervision, Contractor Liaison, Drawings, Testing, Project Management, Wayleaves etc.

£4,500

Total

£61,500

Table 1- Indicative Costs

 

 

Type of System

No.

National Grid (400 & 275 kV)

238

Distribution System

 

>650 V (i.e. 132kV, 33kV etc)

4,849

Final Distribution

 

Pole mounted

260,435

Ground mounted

166,015

Total all voltages

431,537

Table 2- Number of Distribution Systems

 

An inflation calculation was carried out to calculate what these costs would be for utility companies today (Stevenson, 2014). Below are details of this calculation

 

 

Year

Annual % Inflation

(RPI)

Total Cost

2004

3.2

63,468

2005

1.8

64,610

2006

4

67,195

2007

3.7

69,681

2008

0.5

70,030

2009

2

71,430

2010

4.1

74,359

2011

4.1

77,407

2012

2.5

79,343

2013

2

80,930

Table 3- Inflation Costs

 

Therefore by taking the total number of substations in the UK and summing the total cost of substation replacement expenditures, the total rate is

 

£35 BILLION

 

This figure demonstrates the reasons that may cause concern. If the aggressive deployment of these technologies is implemented then naturally it will incur huge costs to the utility companies.