National Grid 2016 Annual Report Download - page 34

Principal operations
Electricity Transmission We own and manage the
electricity transmission system in England and Wales.
Our networks comprise approximately 7,200 kilometres
(4,470 miles) of overhead line, 1,500 kilometres (932 miles)
of underground cable and 338 substations.
Working with the stakeholder advisory group
we have identified and recommended four
projects to receive funding from the Visual
Impact Provision project. These projects are
in National Parks and Areas of Outstanding
Natural Beauty across England and Wales
and we have now started feasibility studies to
review the existing overhead lines and develop
proposals that will help further enhance
these areas.
The North West Coast Connection
Project continues to progress and maintain
engagement with a broad range of
stakeholders. This includes holding community
information events along the preferred route
corridor and meeting government officials, local
authorities and focus groups to build support
for the statutory formal consultation.
We have developed a mobile application
which allows our operations teams to provide
instant feedback on supplier performance.
This is designed to save time, improve supplier
performance and reduce costs in our supply
chain, helping to deliver further value for
consumers.
Priorities for the year ahead
Change: prepare for the potential challenge
of increased competition in the transmission
market, making sure we can deliver for
our customers in both competitive and
monopoly markets.
Programme delivery: increase the amount
of work we can deliver, and reduce our costs
through improving processes.
Operational efficiency: continue our drive
for efficiency so we can improve productivity.
Project delivery: complete delivery of key
projects such as the London Power Tunnels.
Safety: maintain our world class safety
performance.
Market context
Although demand for electricity is generally
increasing around the world, in the UK it is
expected to remain broadly flat over the next
five to 10 years.
Changes in the sources and characteristics
of generation connecting to our network,
such as wind and nuclear generation, mean
we need to respond by developing the way
we balance and operate our network to
accommodate these sources.
Over the last two years, some generators have
delayed their connection dates to the network
and this means our future investment profile
for electricity transmission is flatter than in
previous years. However, we are ready to
respond to connection dates when we need
to. We will continue to renew our network to
deliver the network reliability our customers
require as efficiently as possible.
What we’ve achieved in 2015/16
The overall reliability of supply for our
transmission system in 2015/16 was
99.999998%.
We have delivered an excellent safety
performance; our safest year on record.
Our lost time injury rate reduced by over
60% and our high potential incident rate fell
by nearly 10%. We have focused on our key
risk areas, such as safe driving and working
at height and continue to work with our
contractors to share best practice in
safety management.
Following a seven year period of consultation,
community engagement and planning
applications we received a development
consent order (DCO) for the construction of a
new transmission circuit to connect the nuclear
power station at Hinkley Point. To connect
the power station to the network we will be
removing existing pylons and constructing
new overhead lines, undergrounding and
using the award-winning T-Pylon.
We were granted a £12 million award from
this year’s Network Innovation Competition
(NIC) which will be used to convert
a substation at Deeside into an off-grid
research facility. This will replicate a live
substation and allow us to test the effects
of future low-carbon generation on the
network with no risk to security of supply.
Once complete this will be the first facility
of its kind in Europe.
Circuit breaker replacement
programme
We have piloted a new approach to
circuit breakers aiming to halve the
time and cost of our replacements
over the RIIO-T1 period. Completing
additional condition assessments
and interface engineering allows
our new high voltage circuit breakers
to be installed on top of existing
structures, saving more than four
weeks of time. We expect this new
innovative approach to reduce our
RIIO-T1 costs by more than £100m.
In focus
Electricity transmitted across
our network
253,981
(GWh)
“ We are ready to respond
to connection dates
when we need to”
32 National Grid Annual Report and Accounts 2015/16 Strategic Report