SMIGHT

The 80/20 rules say that 80% of outcomes are driven by only 20% of inputs. This implies that we should be able to gain considerable leverage by working out what those 20% are and focusing our efforts on these. So the question for network operators is: What are the few that are influencing the many?

You are most probably aware of the 80/20 rule, also known as the pareto principle. It is almost a force a nature. One thing to clear up first through is one misconception that it is just a way of splitting a group up e.g. 20% of pupils in a school are clever and 80% are not. This is not what the 80/20 rule says – the key thing about the 80/20 rule is it is expressing a causal relationship more like: 80% of a company’s sales come from only 20% of its customers or 20% of its products. Also, it doesn’t have to be a precise 80/20 split it could be 70%/5% rule or a 60%/1% rule it really is about the disproportionate imbalance between how much of a result is explained by only a few inputs. The particularly helpful implication is that we can focus our efforts on the few inputs that have this leveraged effect on the outcomes.

So how might we be able to use this in tackling the energy transition particularly from a DSO perspective? Here are some ideas as to where the 80/20 probably exists and therefore where we could benefit from exploring this further:

• 80% of the load on an LV network will be cause by 20% of customers – so if you want to control the load on your network you only need to control these 20%.
• 80% of the voltage issues caused by roof top solar happen only 20% of the time – so you only need to find a solution for this 20% of the time i.e. if you need to curtail their output it won’t be that much.
• 80% of the fluctuation in load on any given feeder can be explained by just 20% of the connections.
• 80% of the flexibility capacity on a network will be accounted for by only 20% of the resources. So, you need to find these and get them engaged to make flexibility work.
• 80% of the faults on your network will be caused by issues on only 20% of your feeders. Find out what they have in common and focus your efforts on dealing with that e.g. where they all laid by the same contractor, are they all laid in a particular type of area, are they all a particular type of cable?

SMIGHT helps DSOs identify the 20% of feeders that are causing 80% of the threshold violations and enables them to monitor and control them. LV network monitoring doesn’t have to cover the whole network, it can be focused on those points which are most critical.