JRC Publications

JRC observes that the majority of electricity utilities in the UK utilise self-licenced spectrum. This allows their electricity grid control systems to include the necessary resilience requirements, e.g. up to five days power backup. (JRC notes that for the mobile operators it would be uneconomic to construct a business case to support the cost of upgrading mobile operator infrastructure to include the necessary power resilience for such a limited user base).
Moreover, JRC emphasises that the requirement for system resilience has necessitated access to exclusive spectrum, e.g. self-managed 12.5 / 25 kHz narrow band channels and Ofcom (UK) managed channels for the fixed links backhaul.
JRC does not believe the market would be well served if vertical sectors could only access spectrum by leasing from operators or through licence-exempt spectrum. This would be a major detrimental step for spectrum access.

The Joint Radio Company (JRC) welcome the opportunity to respond to this call for evidence and we acknowledge the underlying perspective that there is an increasing degree of alignment and interdependency developing across regulated Industry Verticals, particularly across Energy and Telecommunications.
As regards the idea of the establishment of a multi-utility regulator, our perspective is that improved co-ordination across the responsible Government departments aligned to co-ordinated and targeted interventions within the existing regulatory frameworks would be a more efficient and timely approach to adopt.

JRC highlights that communication networks are dependent on access to resilient and robust electricity supplies. Also, with the evolving Smart Grid, that the existing intelligent electricity monitoring and control systems are being expanded to the extremes of the electricity network. This expansion in the operational communications needs of the energy utilities will require access to additional spectrum. This developing need is being explored within Ofcom’s current direct engagement with the Energy Utilities which we welcome. To this end we encourage Ofcom to establish a specific work item to further this Industry need. This may be pursued under the heading of ‘Managing spectrum and planning for future requirements’ within the Annual Plan. It is worth noting the ongoing developments within the Republic of Ireland where the Communications Regulator (ComReg) has acknowledged the need for additional spectrum to be made available to facilitate Smart Grid developments and in so doing is proposing to afford access to 2 x 3 MHz of spectrum in the 400 MHz range for the Irish utilities.

EUTC Spectrum White Paper