Organisation and structure
Organisation
Our organisational structure and executive responsibilities are designed around a philosophy of ensuring that we have the appropriate balance between activities that are local, by lines of business and those that are common throughout National Grid.
The Board of Directors has overall responsibility for governance and management of National Grid. The Executive Committee, led by the Chief Executive, is responsible for day-to-day management of National Grid and for the execution of our strategy as approved by the Board.
In addition to the Executive Committee, the Board has also established a number of other committees that exercise governance over National Grid’s activities, including the Finance, Risk & Responsibility, Remuneration, Nomination and Audit Committees.
More information is available in the Corporate Governance section.
Business and geographic analysis
Our continuing operations are organised by lines of business as follows:
Business analysis
Continuing operations
Our businesses are divided between the UK and the US as follows:
Geographic analysis
Continuing operations
The above charts are based on revenue and operating profit from continuing operations for the year ended 31 March 2008 including exceptional items, remeasurements and stranded cost recoveries.
Revenue in the US includes commodity charges to customers for the energy they use, and on which we make no margin; revenue in the UK does not include similar charges.
Corporate structure
The following is a simplified diagram of our corporate structure and excludes most intermediate holding companies.
The majority of our operating subsidiary companies trade under the National Grid name. The above diagram excludes the Ravenswood generation station that we have agreed to sell, which is a discontinued operation.
History
National Grid originated from the restructurings of the UK gas industry in 1986 and the UK electricity industry in 1990. We entered the US electricity delivery market in 2000 in New England and expanded into upstate New York in 2002. We substantially increased our UK wireless infrastructure activities in 2004 and in 2005 we sold four UK regional gas distribution networks.
In 2006, we acquired from Southern Union Company its gas distribution network in Rhode Island and in 2007 we acquired KeySpan Corporation, expanding our interests in the US substantially. Also in 2007 we completed the sales of our UK and US wireless infrastructure operations and of the Basslink electricity interconnector in Australia, in line with our strategy to focus on our core energy infrastructure markets in the UK and the US.
On 31 March 2008 we announced that we had reached an agreement to sell the Ravenswood generation station.
| Key Milestones | |
| 1986 | British Gas incorporated as a public limited company. |
| 1990 | Electricity transmission network in England and Wales transferred to National Grid on electricity privatisation. |
| 1995 | National Grid listed on the London Stock Exchange. |
| 1997 | British Gas (BG) demerged Centrica. |
| 1997 | National Grid demerged Energis. |
| 2000 | Lattice Group demerged from BG and listed separately. |
| 2000 | New England Electric System and Eastern Utilities Associates acquired by National Grid. |
| 2002 | Niagara Mohawk Power Corporation merged with National Grid’s US operations. |
| 2002 | Merger of National Grid and Lattice Group to form National Grid Transco. |
| 2004 | Acquisition of UK wireless infrastructure network from Crown Castle International Corp. |
| 2005 | Sales of four UK regional gas distribution networks. |
| 2005 | Adoption of National Grid as our name. |
| 2006 | Acquisition of Rhode Island gas distribution network. |
| 2006 | Announcement of new strategy, including our decision to focus on core energy markets in the UK and US. |
| 2007 | Sales of UK and US wireless infrastructure operations and of the Basslink electricity interconnector in Australia. |
| 2007 | Acquisition of KeySpan Corporation. |
| 2008 | Agreement reached to sell the Ravenswood generation station. |
History
The history of the operations we now own dates back much further than the dates listed above. In the UK, the first national electricity transmission network became operational in 1938, while the first national gas company commenced operations in 1812. In the US, the first electricity distribution operations in areas we now serve date back to 1896 in Buffalo, New York, while the earliest gas distribution network started in 1823 in Boston, Massachusetts.
