How we're organised

Gas System Operations is responsible for the real-time operation and control of the gas National Transmission System (NTS) in Great Britain, and for facilitating efficient operation of the GB gas market. It operates the NTS in line with our Primary Gas Transporter Safety Case ensuring that pressure within the NTS is maintained within safe limits and that the quality of the gas we transport complies with the Gas Safety Management Regulations (GSMR).

System Operations delivers value for customers by providing required transmission capacity and flexibility when it is safe to do so, and provides them with critical information and data to allow them to make effective and efficient decisions for their businesses.

The team plays a key role in ensuring that we can deliver value from our gas transmission incentive schemes, which are designed to ensure we make the right risk-reward based decisions on behalf of customers, minimise our environmental impact, and optimise the utilisation of the National Transmission System.

The function is organised into four departments delivering: real-time control, optimisation of the network and commercial strategies, performance against incentives and commercial obligations, and the development of the processes and systems needed both now and in the future.

Plant Operations act as the steward of the National Transmission System. The team looks after the physical assets across Great Britain’s transmission network – 7,760 km of pipeline, 24 compressor stations and 600 above-ground installations in England, Scotland and Wales. It doesn’t cover local gas supplies.

The team also manages National Grid’s Pipelines Maintenance Centre, a leader in emergency and planned solutions for pipeline repair, replacement, maintenance and intervention. It delivers work both in the regulated gas sector and other areas, as principal contractor, contractor and sub-contractor.

Overall, Plant Operations ensure the safe, reliable and affordable transportation of energy from gas producers to gas transmission customers. The focus every day is on keeping the gas flowing and the lights on, playing a part in sustaining future prosperity across Britain.

Strategy and Performance teams fulfil our role as the owner of gas transmission assets.

Within the Strategy and Performance team we have brought together our business planning work and our customer and stakeholder team, recently incorporating gas system operations stakeholders.

Working with Ofgem, our customers and stakeholders, we are giving ourselves the best opportunity to understand what their needs are now and into the future, and then deliver an excellent service.

Engineering and Asset Management team carries out the asset manager role in the organisation, shaping the strategy and investment projects needed to maintain a healthy gas transmission network.

These teams also deliver a continuous programme of innovation: the programme looks at how we can improve day-to-day technology as well as more ambitious, transformational engineering projects such as GRAID, a robot which can inspect otherwise unreachable pipelines. For the longer term, these teams are driving innovation that helps to deliver the decarbonised network of the future, including work to investigate hydrogen as a likely route to provide cleaner heat.