Innovation Hub | National Grid

We invest in innovation to solve real-world problems: Lowering costs, supporting job growth and renewable energy, and preparing the grid for tomorrow’s demands. Whether it’s helping a family stay warm during a storm or enabling a new business to thrive with reliable power, our work is grounded in impact.

Latest technology used across our networks

Robots

Spot® is a high-tec robot dog that we use to carry out critical safety inspections and detect issues with equipment at sites.

LineVision technology

Sensors and Dynamic Line Rating (DLR) technology highlights spare capacity on overhead power lines allowing for the integration of more renewable power.

Anti-leak technology

Molten metal technology uses low-melting-point molten metal to rapidly fix leaks of sulphur hexafluoride (SF6) greenhouse gas in our substations.

Power flow controllers

We’re working with Smart Wires develop a tool to coordinate the installation and operation of advanced power flow control (APFC) devices that can help resolve bottlenecks in electricity flow.

Artificial intelligence

Innovative and state-of-the-art artificial intelligence (AI) technologies we’re trialling or adopting to solve issues and evolve our energy systems.

Autonomous drones

Autonomous drones can perform pilot-free infrastructure inspections. A cloud-based AI model processes the data and images collected by the drone, automatically detecting defects and producing near real-time asset condition reports.

AiDash satellite technology

The AiDash system provides both Intelligent Vegetation Management and Intelligent Sustainability Management. It uses satellite imagery to locate problems on power lines and an AI dashboard makes predictions about which areas need immediate attention.

Exodigo underground infrastructure mapping

Exodigo’s non-intrusive subsurface imaging platform helps to map underground infrastructure by providing a digital, geolocated 3D map of buried assets.

OceanBrain undersea cable monitoring

OceanBrain is a digital tool developed by National Grid Partners, that modernises how undersea cables are monitored. It combines complex data sources with machine learning to automatically quantify the risk of potential damage.

Helicopter LiDAR data

The helicopter unit for our distribution network uses Light Detection and Ranging (LiDAR) data to comprehensively survey network assets and any adjacent vegetation.

Cathodic Pipe Protection machine learning

Cathodic Pipe Protection (CPP) is a predictive model that detects past patterns to help us anticipate future work and estimates the probability that each test point in our underground US gas network would fail an inspection.

Deeside Innovation Centre

The Deeside Centre for Innovation (DCI) is the first facility in Europe where assets associated with electricity networks can be investigated, tried and tested, prior to being rolled out on live transmission and distribution systems.