What we said we'd do

As the electricity transmission owner in England and Wales, we're responsible for the safe and reliable operation of an extensive network of assets. Our role is to protect the public and those who work on our network, from the inherent dangers associated with providing a high voltage electricity transmission supply.

Our outputs will make sure that we protect the public from harm. We will maintain our current high levels of reliability so that electricity is available whenever and wherever current and future consumers want it. Our outputs include:

  • We will deliver world-class levels of safety and maintain our service reliability of 99.9999 per cent.
  • We will invest to renew and modernise 6 to 19 per cent of our different network asset types to maintain reliability for future generations.
  • We will deliver three major electricity cable projects in London, Sheffield and North Wales to maintain security of supply.
  • We will divert our river-crossing on the Tyne to support growth in manufacturing (including wind turbines) in the North-East of England.
     

What we’ve done and what we’re going to do

Safety

This continues to be our number one priority and we are pleased that, during 2022/23 we have seen our overall injury frequency rate (IFR) reduce to 0.13.  As well as none of our field or office-based employees suffering a Lost Time Injury (LTI) during the year, the frequency of LTIs amongst our contractor workforce has reduced.  We have employed an independent consultancy to work with us to examine the incidents and identify root causes and themes; the information from this has enhanced our understanding and helped develop our approach.  A common theme across the incidents has been Human Behaviour and Human Error and therefore we are introducing a Behavioural Safety programme alongside a SHE improvement plan to place greater emphasis on incident reduction and physical and psychological safety.  The reduction of all incidents, especially those with potential to harm, remains a key driver in Electricity Transmission.

Reliability

We are committed to delivering a reliable network and have continued the strong performance from the first year of RIIO-T2, achieving 5.2MWh of ‘Energy Not Supplied’ in 2022/23 against an incentive neutral point of 147MWh.  This equates to an average network reliability of 99.999997%, which our stakeholders tell us continues to be so important to them.   We have continued to invest in the network for the benefit of future consumers and customers, managing network risk and maintaining longer-term system reliability.

Another measure of reliability is in our Network Asset Replacement Metric (NARM). As asset managers we know the most about our assets and plan to replace them at the most economic time. Each of our assets has a risk and criticality score and it is this reduction of risk that we are measured against. In FY23 we completed all of the required interventions to keep us on track to meet our NARM targets for the end of RIIO-T2.

Our cable replacement projects are on track to deliver their outputs in RIIO-T2, with the current focus on completing the London Power Tunnels work over the next three years

Ongoing engagement with local stakeholders and with Ofgem on our Tyne crossing project has delayed the reopener submission as we seek to find agreement on who should bear the costs of this project. Is it fair that all UK consumers pay for these works, or just those who will benefit from the undergrounding of the Tyne OHL crossing.