National Grid provides information to the participants in the gas and electricity markets by publishing an outlook for the winter and more recently summer ahead. Recognising that our sources of data are necessarily incomplete, for the winter outlook report we conduct a consultation exercise designed both to help inform the industry and also to provide us with feedback to support the production of the winter Consultation Report.

In conjunction with Ofgem, we have decided to conduct a similar consultation process this year. The initial winter consultation report published on 30 June 2009 represents the first stage of that process with consultation responses sought by 11September 2009. There will also be an Ofgem led industry winter seminar in early September 2009. We then plan to publish the Final Winter Consultation Report during week commencing 28 September 2009, reflecting the feedback received from industry participants.