MapStand Newsletter - December 2024

Hello and welcome to the last newsletter of 2024! We're excited to share our end of year round-up with you.

It’s been a fantastic year here at MapStand. We introduced REACT, welcomed new clients, onboarded new team members and we've been nominated for awards.

Let's begin...

We moved to Sheffield 🌍

2024 was the year that we put down permanent roots in Sheffield! 🌳

Like many businesses, COVID-19 made us completely reevaluate how we did things. We decided to move MapStand HQ up North - from London to Sheffield Technology Parks.

There have been many benefits to moving - not least, MapStand CEO Francis has swapped the hectic streets of London for the beautiful, scenic Peak District.

Francis said, "Relocating MapStand's office to Sheffield has been a wonderful change. Not only does it allow us to tap into our city's thriving ecosystem, but we've hired new team members and had multiple students from Sheffield Business School carry out project work. We have great links to both universities, and we can access high-quality graduates to support our future growth.” 

We've worked on successful projects! 

It's great to see our data being used within clients' platforms. If you'd like to explore how to use MapStand data in your platform, click the button below to get in touch.

REACT Alpha 🙌

REACT is a collaborative project that we have been working on with SSEN Transmission, Olsights, National Grid Electricity Transmission and SGN. The Rapid Evaluation Areal Connection Tool (REACT) allows users to view electricity grid requests in real-time using an interactive visualisation map.

REACT will be particularly beneficial for transmission owners and project developers. It will help them understand reinforcement requirements for new developments and identify strategic opportunities to build demand units utilising excess power at peak times.

To achieve Net Zero by 2050, we need tools and processes that help manage complex risks, speed up the grid connection process and improve planning for Transmission Owners. These changes will allow them to deliver infrastructure upgrades effectively and save money by reducing constraint costs. 

Find out all about the project here.

It's been a fantastic year of industry events 🌍

We've been fortunate to meet many of you at some brilliant industry events this year. Here are some of the events that we've attended and spoken at recently...

In May we exhibited at the Innovate UK All-Energy Exhibition and Conference. We shared our REACT tool developed with Olsights, Ofgem and Innovate UK and talked about grid connections, hydrogen, curtailment and energy transition.

In October we went to The 1Spatial Smarter Data Smarter World Utilities Conference where MapStand CEO Francis spoke about his experiences working on the REACT project digital model build, using innovative approaches to tackling data quality and integration challenges.

In November we attended the UK Carbon Capture and Storage Research Centre (UKCCSRC) Knowledge Exchange Conference in Sheffield to explore how our datasets can be used to look at probabilistic spatial cluster outcomes for a more realistic assessment of future transport and storage capacities.

2024 at MapStand HQ

It's been an amazing year here at MapStand and as always, we're grateful for your support. Here's a snapshot of our 2024 highlights:

- Our REACT project (a collaboration between MapStand, SSE, Olsights and National Grid Electricity Transmission and SGN) was shortlisted as a finalist in the ‘Innovation Award - Energy’ category at the Utility Week Awards 2024.
- We welcome new interns and new staff members to the team. Emma joined us as an intern in the summer from Lancaster University researching opportunities for demand in the UK Hydrogen economy 🌏 Charlie joined MapStand on an internship earlier this year and is now a key part of our data and analytics team! Kevin joined to focus on our business development opportunities and Greg joined us to lead our Data Team, further enhancing our data development processes. 🙌

Coming soon in 2025...

- We're becoming an official ESRI partner 

- We hope to announce the next phase of REACT 🤞

- Further development of our new Emissions Forecasting Model 

- Continued enhancement of existing data sets 

A final note from Francis

If you'd like to discuss how we can support you with projects in 2025 and beyond, we'd love to hear from you. You can contact us here.

Thanks for reading. Speak to you soon!

Francis and the MapStand team