Public Funding for Utonomy Ltd

Methane leakage from gas distribution networks is a serious financial and environmental issue. * Methane's impact on global warming is 84 times greater than CO2(1) * Gas lost globally is estimated at 300,000 GWh or £16 billion p.a. * The impact on global warming is equivalent to 1,700 million tCO2e. Other than replacing pipes, which has a massive capital cost, the only means of reducing leakage is through improved pressure management in the network. As leakage is proportional to the pressure in the pipes, a 20% pressure reduction results in 20% less leakage. Currently, pressure is controlled by thousands of gas governors (26,000 in the UK). The majority of these are adjusted manually -- typically four times per year, which is a high operational cost and a logistically challenging. The only other remote pressure management technology dates from the 1980s, is expensive, time- consuming to install and requires continuous manual intervention. Utonomy's innovative, patented solution adjusts pressures in the network so that they are always as low as possible, while maintaining security of supply. Utonomy has been running field trials with SGN on their live network since January 2019. These trials have successfully proven the core technology. The next regulatory period RIIO-2 (April 21 to March 26) contains targets set by OFGEM for leakage and average network pressures. Deployment of the Utonomy solution will help the UK GDNs (gas distribution networks) to meet these targets. Although the technology has been proven in field trials, there is still further development work required before it can be rolled out across a whole gas network as "business as usual". This project will complete this work and will be the final step prior to commercialization. The R&D programme includes adapting to the many different governor types that are present in the GB network, finding a solution to underground installations with challenging environments such as flooding, and continuing to make further improvements in cyber security. The project will also enable the technology to be trialed in markets outside the UK.

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Methane leakage from gas distribution networks is a serious financial and environmental issue. • Methane's impact on global warming is 84 times greater than CO2(1) • Gas lost globally is estimated at 300,000 GWh or £16 billion p.a. • The impact on global warming is equivalent to 1,700 million tonnes of CO2e which is more than 4 times total UK CO2e emissions. Other than replacing pipes, which has a massive capital cost, the only means of reducing leakage is through improved management of the pressures in the network. By reducing the average pressure in the pipes, methane leakage can be reduced. This is because the leakage is proportional to pressure e.g. a 15% pressure reduction results in 15% less leakage. Existing pressure management technology is out of date, expensive, time-consuming to install and requires continuous manual intervention. Utonomy is developing a solution that enables gas distribution networks (GDNs) to remotely adjust pressures in their network or to control pressures based on time of day. A key part of this solution is an innovative actuator that can be retrofitted to the thousands of gas governors feeding the network. This solution will shortly be trialled with one of the larger GDNs. While the current Utonomy solution already provides benefits in terms of lower operating costs and lower leakage, a further significant improvement could be achieved by using a more sophisticated control solution. The purpose of this project is to develop software, which uses self-learning algorithms and statistical methods to forecast the demand in the network and to calculate the optimum settings of all the governors at any point in time. The software would enable the pressure in the network to be continuously and automatically controlled so that it is as low as possible without going below the minimum. Utonomy proved the viability of this approach during a very successful Innovate UK proof of concept project carried out in 2016. Over 20yrs IPCC Fifth Assessment Chapter 8 table 8.7

Smart gas grid control to increase biomethane injection capacity

Utonomy was founded in May ‘15 to develop technology for reducing leakage in low pressure gas distribution networks by optimising pressure in the network. We want to verify use of advanced predictive analytics to reduce overall pressure and therefore gas leakage which is directly proportional to the pressure in the network. Natural gas (used in the networks) is comprised largely of methane which is a potent greenhouse gas and leakage of gas is a big contributor to global warming. Although only 14% of greenhouse gas emissions worldwide are methane, it traps up to 84 times more heat than CO2 (over 20 years). This smaller amount of methane is 12 times worse for climate change than CO2 over 20 years. In the UK, leakage from the gas network is estimated at 7,000 GWh (1% of gas transported) costing the consumer £180m pa and releasing 10m tonnes pa of CO2e (the method by which the greenhouse effect of all gases are measured is by comparison to CO2). By optimising the pressure, we expect to reduce leakage by more than 20%. The Intelligent Gas Grid Management (IGGM) project, will develop and test a method of predicting demand and demand/pressure relationships automatically regulating pressure in a network to keep it just above the minimum. To achieve this, we will undertake R&D on the two most challenging aspects of the proposed solution 1. Mathematical analysis of large data sets to develop a predictive software control model 2. A means of accurately adjusting the governor’s (gas pressure control valve) outlet pressure through a mechatronic hardware design. The PoC output will be software that allows us to model the leakage savings on an example gas network, plus hardware that demonstrates that precise governor control can be achieved within cost and reliability targets. To exploit outcomes, we will approach gas distributors for trials/commercial partnerships and seek investment & funding to develop a prototype for an end-to-end pressure control system.