The Volta programme: Powering the future of dispatch with Tapestry, an energy moonshot at X, The Moonshot Factory (Alphabet’s innovation lab), to bring AI into our control room

The Volta programme is at the forefront of integrating Artificial Intelligence (AI) to revolutionise the energy system by enhancing decision-making and operational efficiency in our control room. As energy infrastructure undergoes transformative changes to deliver a secure, net zero future in Great Britain (GB), the need for advanced systems-level thinking has become critical and our innovation programme, Volta, is seeking to deliver this through a range of targeted projects.

As part of the Volta programme, we’re partnering on innovation projects with several organisations that are also playing an essential role in its successful delivery, with Mesh AI (Adaptive Models Feasibility project), AFRY (Qualitative Benchmarking and Impact Analysis project), Faculty AI (Advanced Scheduling Adviser project), University of Oxford and IBM (Real Time Predictor Innovation project) and Smith Institute (Verification and Validation project). The wider Volta programme's AI-driven insights are expected to significantly improve operational reliability and stability, optimise dispatch, and reduce balancing costs.

Partnering with Tapestry on the Grand Optimiser project

Central to the Volta programme is the Grand Optimiser project, which we’re partnering with Tapestry, an energy moonshot at X, The Moonshot Factory (Alphabet’s innovation lab) to deliver.

The Grand Optimiser project enhances dispatch optimisation, increasing the efficiency of control room instructions to electricity generators such as gas and nuclear power stations, wind farms and batteries. By using integrated digital models, the Grand Optimiser project can streamline processes and potentially reduce the costs associated with operating GB’s electricity system.

Rather than just building a single optimiser, the project will create a full optimisation framework, defining how multiple digital models interact, co-simulate and align across operational timelines, with this foundational design shaping the future of our control systems.

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What’s next for the Grand Optimiser project?

The project will span the end-to-end design optimisation process for the balancing mechanism, with a series of deliverables that will be foundational to our future control room transformation:

• End-to-End Design of Balancing Optimisation – to define the overarching architecture of how multiple solvers—covering energy, reserve, and ancillary services—will interact, to set the stage for co-simulation, sequential optimisation and integration timelines.
• Architecture Plan and Whole System Design - a comprehensive system architecture plan detailing how the Grand Optimiser will be embedded within our operational ecosystem, including data flows, solver orchestration and control interfaces.
• Roadmap for Development and Integration Phases – to outline the phased development and integration strategy for the Grand Optimiser, including milestones, dependencies and alignment with our broader Volta programme.
• Interface and Product Design Mock-Up - a visual and functional mock-up of the Grand Optimiser’s interface, showing how it will integrate with our existing systems and user workflows.

Innovation at NESO 

Recently we published our Innovation Annual Summary. In the summary, you can look back at what we’ve achieved over the last year in the innovation space and explore case studies of our standout projects. 

Read here