How National Grid Achieved Rapid ML Solution in Just Six Weeks

The Customer

National Grid Electricity Distribution is an electricity distribution network operator serving 7.9 million customers, responsible for the equipment (including pylons and substations) that delivers electricity. It is the largest electricity transmission and distribution business in the UK.

Our Role

NGED engaged Qodea to deliver a data platform with a secure Google Cloud foundation, capable of running an ML model as a tool for producing scalable high-granularity powerflow forecasts through advanced data access, modelling and analytics.

The Challenge

The customer needed a highly secure foundation before the data science effort could begin. As it provides critical national infrastructure, its security and resilience requirements are extensive, and with Ofgem regulating the money distribution companies are entitled to, and what they must deliver in return, the customer needed an effective solution to drive cost savings and safety improvements.

The Solution

Qodea delivered a secure foundation, providing customer onboarding and training to enable secure operations that met CNI (Critical National Infrastructure) requirements. Qodea then facilitated data science teams to utilise data access, modelling and analytics techniques. The whole solution, including the foundations, was delivered in six weeks.

The Result

The customer now has the scalable, high-granularity powerflow forecasts they wanted to achieve. By developing this initial workload for peak demand forecasting, National Grid Electricity Distribution can continue their modernisation activities, with foundations laid by Qodear for future MLOps and data workloads – and a secure operating model for Google Cloud that will enable other workloads to be delivered in the future.