Last weekend was fuelled by data (and pizza) for a group of students, including undergraduates and postdocs, at Oxford University.
They were taking part in a competition, which put their talents to good use with a lot of number crunching. Their task? To work out new ways of forecasting local electricity demand, and to establish the extent of low-carbon technologies in a given area, with the help and support from SSEN's team of data experts.
This kind of data is vital to ensuring the new net zero electricity system currently being designed and delivered is fit-for-purpose to meet the need, both now and in the decades to come. SSEN's own advanced near-real time data infrastructure is setting new standards for data transparency.
ABOVE: The winning team!
Given Scottish and Southern Electricity Networks' own data leadership, we were very keen to get involved and lend our teams' expertise to the students efforts. Members of our Distribution Systems Operations and Whole Systems teams, were there throughout the weekend to lend a helping hand.
Paul Fitzgerald, SSEN's Smart Energy Systems Performance Manager says:
“It was an amazing experience to participate in the Oxford Energy competition, partnered with SSEN, to problem solve a task using SSEN’s data. The students did an excellent job analysing and finding innovative ways to use various datasets on our Open Data Portal, in particular the smart meter data. We learnt a lot from the event to help further develop our portal and how stakeholders can gain insights into our rich data sources."
Dr Elnaz Azizi, from the Energy & Power group at Oxford University, says:
"Brainstorming between academic and industry experts is undoubtedly a catalyst for achieving net zero goals. This hackathon provided a valuable platform for students from the University of Oxford and professionals from SSEN, leading to impressive breakthroughs in data-driven load monitoring and forecasting."
Christopher Ivan Budiwardhana, who was one of those taking part, says:
"It was both exciting and challenging to have a go at solving the problems SSEN is actually facing right now as more low-carbon technologies are added to the grid. I'd love to take part in more of these events in the future!"