Latest News

PPA Energy
The merger of Cre8 with PPA to form PPA energy  has already led to significant growth opportunities with many new customers and assignments both in the UK and increasingly overseas too with assignments in South America, Africa and Middle East.

FlexNet Annual Conference 

The first annual Flexnet Conference was held  in May 2008 at Bath University with represenatives for EPSRC, Universities and Energy Industry leaders. Cre8 lead some lively workstreams with new researchers and provided strategic planning and management support for the event.

More information on both FlexNet and the conference are available from the Flexnet website

International Interconnections:Opportunities for Europe in the Global Market
Friday, 25 April 2008 | IET Savoy Place, London, UK
Cre8 paricipated in the organisation of this seminar  that explores the challenges presented by enormous power systems that network international interconnection creates. PPA Enegy's Jonathan Hedgecock presented an overview of the interconnection chalenegs and opportunities available in Africa.

Cre8 and PPA merge to form PPA Energy
The merger of PPA and Cre8 Energy to form PPA Energy, based at Guildford, provides the platform for substantial growth both in the UK and the rapidly expanding international energy and carbon management sectors - see side tab for more details of this exciting development.

Southern African Power Pool (SAPP), 30th conference Lesotho

Cre8 and PPA provided a oveview of future energy and network technologies to delegates from 18 southern african countries in the mountain kingdom of Lesotho in the "roof of Africa"

 Kestrel
Cre8's innovative proposals for a new active network management and loss reduction toolset submitted to the TSB's Low Carbon "Intelligent Networks Programme"  has been aceepetd at EOI stage and discusion with a growing number of interested patrners continues.

Cre8's activities and client base continues to expand
Cre8 has been very busy in 2007 and is actively looking at ways to significantly expand the range and scope of our services in 2008. 
Take a look at the some of our news below and don't forget to click on the Seminars tab too!

Please contact us directly on +44 (0) 208 325 6560 to learn more about the following:

EU FP7-ENERGY-2008 -1 call was published on 30 November 2007 with an indicative budget of EUR 26.3 million. The topics include:
      + Initiatives in the field of concentration photovoltaics
      + Pre-normative research for hydropower
      + Open-access standard for Smart Multi-MeteringServices

World University Rankings Nov 2007
Cre8's principle academic partner Imperial College London have in 2007 not only celebrated their Centenary and become an independent university awarding their own degrees, but have now moved from ninth to fifth in the world in theTimes Higher Education Supplement's 2007 World University Rankings. The rankings reflect a combination of factors including peer assessment, graduate recruiter feedback, research citations and student-staff ratios.
The THES 2007 top ten universities are:
Harvard University
University of Cambridge
University of Oxford
Yale University
Imperial College London
Princeton University
California Institute of Technology (Caltech)
University of Chicago
University College London
Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT)

Zefal Approved   Oct 2007
The newly formed Technology Strategy Board who have taken over the former DTI's Technology programme have approved funding for a ground-breaking two year basic research project to develop an entirely new class of "ideal citizen" active network generators for connection to distribution networks. Cre8 have been at the heart of creating this multi-partner project which is due to start work across three main sites in April 2008  

Party Political Conferences 2007

Cre8's Technical Director will be representing the IEEE Power Engineering Society at this years party political conferences and ensuring that  conference meetings around around the themes of Planning Energy for a Sustainable World, Energy Management, Active Networks and the place of Research have challenging and knowledgeable resources available to stimulate their debates.

UPEC 2007 Brighton 4- 6 September

Cre8's Technical Director was the keynote speaker at the University's Power Engineering Conference initial plenary session, with some 250 electricity and energy sector academics from around the world gathering to present and debate the issues and challenges  of  sustainable electricity systems in a low carbon world.

Technology Strategy Board

The TSB is a new independent government agency that in July 2007 took over the role of the UK's Technology Programme from the former DTI. Working from it's new base at Swindon it will work closely with  EPSRC and the Regional Development Agencies to provide  funding  to stimulate the development and exploitations of UK Innovation.

Cre8 have established impressive collaborative team including two of the UK' premier universities, a major research and test facility and three of the largest UK Distribution Network Operators,  for a groundbreaking project under the Spring 2007 Technology Programme "Low Carbon Energy" Call. Following a very successful first round proposal, the independent assessors  invited the consortium to submit a Full Stage proposal that was submitted in September.   

Losses in South America

Electrical System Losses was the number one concern raised by visitors to the joint Cre8 and PPA stands and Cired and Power Africa team this year. Cre8 and PPA have extensive experience in technical and commercial loss reduction across a wide range of network and countries and  have recently commenced a major two year loss reduction project in South America.

Power Africa 2007  Johannesburg 16-20 July

Cre8 and PPA operated a joint stand at this year IEE Power Africa 2007 Conference in South Africa, attracting a wide range of clients with pressing need for both conventional and innovative solutions to their business, operational and organisational needs. 

Private Networks Strategy

Cre8 and PPA have commenced a strategy, valuation, losses and operational review for a major private distribution network operator after successfully completing an initial network evaluation and opportunity assessment review for a major international company. 

Cre8 energy and PPA were active participants with a busy stand with  the theme of     

Cired 2007 was a unique opportunity to learn, discuss and exchange experience about the major structural, technical, managerial and regulatory changes that are now being made, and will further take place, to cope with the full liberalisation of electricity markets

More details

The SUPERGEN FutureNet Consortium is making a major contribution to understanding how energy networks need to change so as to support and encourage new sources while providing the standards of service that customers expect.

Cre8 together with the IET and IEEE  supported the Supergen FutureNet and FlexNet consortia in arranging the Thinking Networks conference on 27 March at the IET Savoy Place, London. 

The packed programme from a panel of expert speakers set out the breadth of what has already been achieved in the first three years of the FutureNet research programme and the Vision of  FlexNet for the four years commencing in October 2007.

Copies of the 15 presentations covering engineering, economics and social  aspects of  future power networks, as well as some  27 detailed posters pointing the way to future flexible networks, as well as links to webcasts of the sessions can be found at the FlexNet web site 

EU Framework 7
Cre8 are starting to develop a portfolio of  project ideas  for FP7.  FP7 is the short name for the Seventh Framework Programme for Research and Technological Development announced just before Christmas 2006. This is the EU's main instrument for funding research in Europe and it will run from 2007-2013 with a budget for the next seven years of € 50.5 billion
The collaborative research programme stretches across Europe and other partner countries.
Key themes include information and communications technologies 9.1bn; nanosciences & nanotechnologies €5.5bn, energy €2.3bn; environment (including climate change) €1.8bn and transport €4.18bn.

Cre8 participated at the Smart Energy briefing session in Vienna in February and look forward to hearing from you if this or any any of the above subject areas would be of interest to you.

UrbanBuzz: Building Sustainable Communities
Cre8 are actively engaged in the development of a number of UrbanBuzz projects and expect to be providing expert input into the energy, low-carbon, infrastructure and innovation network of resources.

UrbanBuzz: Building Sustainable Communities
is a 2 year programme that aims to develop new ways of delivering genuinely sustainable forms of development and community in London and the wider Southeast region.  

UrbanBuzz is sponsored by the Higher Education Funding Council for England (HEFCE) and the Department for Trade and Industry (DTi) who together are funding the creation of a network of professionals and practitioners with leading edge academics. They will work together to identify and work on live sustainable urban development projects. 

 www.urbanbuzz.org

Supergen FlexNet
Cre8 have been  facilitating the generation of ideas in conjunction with stakeholders, developing a challenging work programme and  raising the consortium's impact and brand image in its highly successful bid renewal programme.

The Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) have recently approved a  major four year research project involving seven major UK universities together with a wide range of industrial, utility and other stakeholders.

FlexNet will lay out the major steps - technical, economic, market design, public acceptance and others - that will lead to flexible electricity networks, including starting to showcase these so that they can be taken up by the commercial sector, Government and Regulators for practical implementation.

The name FlexNet provides linkage to the first FutureNet programme whilst recognising the distinctive aspects of the work now to be done, and the strapline 'Thinking Networks' emphasises the consortium's intention to both' think about networks', and to develop networks that can 'think' for themselves.

FlexNet web site:  FlexNet

Urban Energy Systems
Cre8 consultants are leading the electricity and gas networks workstream of the Urban Energy Systems Project and are active in a wide range of other aspects including evaluating the potential of energy sources in cities and dynamic modelling concepts.

BP's Urban Energy Systems project includes a major step forward for the concepts of integrated energy in cities and very much builds on a multi-disciplinary and collaborative approach.

BP's Urban Energy Systems project is based at the Energy Futures Lab at Imperial College London
Urban Energy Systems

The Stern Report on the Economics of Climate Change
Cre8 are actively engaged on a wide range of techno-economic and low-carbon projects with climate change impacts including Supergen FutureNet and FlexNet, BPs Urban Energy Systems as well as having extensive experience in energy loss reduction in major energy systems.

The comprehensive Stern review on the economics of climate change was published in November. 
It was commissioned by the Government last year and is mainly about economics rather than science and engineering, although it seems to see arguments for climate change as compelling.

"The conclusion of the Stern Review is essentially optimistic. There is still time to avoid the worst impacts of climate change, if we act now and act internationally. Governments, businesses and individuals all need to work together to respond to the challenge. Strong, deliberate policy choices by governments are essential to motivate change
But the task is urgent. Delaying action, even by a decade or two, will take us into dangerous territory. We must not let this window of opportunity close."

Innovate 2006
The DTI have recently announced their autumn 2006 competion for innovation funding in
Emerging Energy Technologies.
Low Carbon Energy Technologies has £8m of funding available for
                Intelligent Grid Management and Storage
                Wave and Tidal Stream
                Offshore Wind
                Microgeneration/Photovoltaics
                Bioenergy

The closing date for autumn 2006 applications has now passed and ideas for the next round of grants are being developed - contact Cre8 for more details of how to engage in the next funding round. 

Innovation Funding Opportunities 

Cre8 have recently completed a review of the projects reported  under OFGEM's Innovation Funding Incentive (IFI), this shows that whilst there are a large number of are projects are now  under way, there still  major opportunities that have yet to be explored.

Interested parties are invited to contact us immediately for further details of the analysis and opportunities. 

Cre8's response to OFGEM's open letter on IFI and RPZs
can be downloaded as a pdf document

Cre8 Projects

Cre8 have been busy with a rapidly growing number of projects for a surprisingly wide variety of clients or all sizes, and across many industry sectors.
Emerging common themes include recognition of  the role that innovation, energy efficency and real time risk management have to play in developing their businesses and in some very different ways from the past.
Clients are also increasingly appreciative of the opportunity for confidential, independent, and creative debate over  issues and values that can initially be hard to explore within the confines of existing organisations.



Energy Review
The UK Governments' 2006 Energy Review published on 11 July 2006 presents fresh challenges across a wide spectrum of energy issues that Cre8 has been engaged in notably Energy Efficency, Smart Metering, Distributed Generation, Active Systems, Transport and Reserves.

Download  the Energy Review Executive Summary

These changes present very real challenges and opportunities for the future of distributed generation and demand side management as well as for transport and real time risk management.

Domestic Metering Innovation

Ofgem has recently published it's review of Domestic Metering Innovation.
Cre8 responded positively to Ofgem's consultation paper as we believe smart metering could well lie at the heart of the next phase of disruptive innovation in the energy sector.  See Cre8's response to OFGEM's consultation


Disruptive Innovation and Decision Analysis

Cre8 have, in conjunction with a number of organisations, begun exploring the potential opportunities and threats presented by Disruptive Innovation and the Vectors of Change in both markets and customer expectations. By combining these techniques, with those of Decision Analysis, it has been possible to establish some new insights into a number of marketing and product development opportunities.

At such a time of change it is evident that leading companies are seeking understanding of the potential impact and opportunities that innovative thinking can have on their businesses

Disruptive Innovation and Decision Analysis

Cre8 have, in conjunction with a number of organisations, begun exploring the potential opportunities and threats presented by Disruptive Innovation and the Vectors of Change in both markets and customer expectations. By combining these techniques, with those of Decision Analysis, it has been possible to establish some new insights into a number of marketing and product development opportunities.

At such a time of change it is evident that leading companies are seeking understanding of the potential impact and opportunities that innovative thinking can have on their businesses

Creating the Future
We are continuing our "creating the future" programme of visits to major network operators, manufactures and other stakeholders, to discuss opportunities for innovation, business strategy, decision analysis  and the value of collaborative working.
 "A real thought-provoking discussion and a real treat to speak at such depth" was the comment of a recent attendee of such a session. A significant number of our new contacts come directly from referrals from those we have already met.
If you know of others who you think might value an in depth discussion about "creating the future" or would like to arrange a workshop yourself, please contact us on 0208 325 6560.

Seminars  Click on the side tab for more details of  our conferences and seminars.

          Cre8 Innovation Solutions Ltd   0208 325 6560