Northern Powergrid has unveiled an £83million programme to help put renewable energy at the heart of the economy of parts of northern England.
Smart Grid Enablers is to set up a smart grid, which will run until 2023, changing the way power is delivered to almost four million homes and businesses in the North East, Yorkshire and northern Lincolnshire.
The firm says the smart grid will help put low-carbon technology at the centre of the North’s economy, and enabling solutions that could save up to £500million by 2031.
The programme will also replace or install more than 1,900 substation and transformer control units by 2023, which allows engineers to monitor and control equipment in real time.
Patrick Erwin, policy and markets director at Northern Powergrid, said: “Our Smart Grid Enablers programme is putting our region at the forefront of the low-carbon revolution.
“It will make us ready to support rapid growth of electric vehicles, heat pumps and solar power in the next decade, while maintaining a reliable system and keeping costs as low as possible for all our customers.
“This is the most comprehensive upgrade programme of any UK network operator and will give us a state of the art command and control capability, enabling us to respond to real-time information about power flow on our network.”