2024 was a year of progress. Reform of the connections process moved ahead, and our engineering teams at National Grid Electricity Transmission pushed on with the hard work of plugging in the energy projects that will help Britain decarbonise.
From Christmas lights to Christmas dinner, many British festive traditions wouldn’t be possible without electricity. To celebrate the critical role electricity plays in powering Christmas, National Grid has released 12 dazzling facts behind the festivities, from the cost of lighting a tree, to powering those new games consoles, and just how many people will be working on Christmas day to keep the lights on.
Investing at an unprecedented level
The plan includes an unprecedented level of investment of up to £35 billion over the five years to March 2031, including:
The annual event, run by Devizes Outdoor Celebratory Arts (DOCA) and Devizes Town Council, involves a weekend of creative seasonal activities including a popular lantern parade leading up to the Christmas lights switch-on.
Lending a helping hand this year to steward and supervise the festivities were National Grid’s lead project manager Amardeep Malhi and project manager Simon Langley who joined in on this year’s festive fun.
How many helicopters does National Grid have?
In the UK, we have a fleet of eight helicopters in total:
This prestigious annual ESG award applauds utilities that exceed their regulatory criteria and demonstrate a strong commitment to stewardship and engagement for the communities in which they operate.
Since 2020, National Grid has collaborated with social enterprise, Connectr as part of the London Power Tunnels project, a £1 billion initiative to rewire South London with 32.5 km of deep underground tunnels.
How is connections reform progressing?
Our teams at National Grid Electricity Transmission (ET) have been working hard with the NESO, Ofgem, government and industry on changes to improve Britain’s connections process, helping to shape progress at every turn.
We’ve seen positive developments, with the government and Ofgem’s Connections Action Plan from last year giving a fresh boost and industry-wide coordination to efforts to get projects plugged in faster.
Myth 1: The climate has always been changing, this is no different
It’s true that throughout earth’s 4.5-billion-year history, the climate has changed a lot. What is different is the dramatic and unprecedented scale of climate change. The rate of temperature rise is at least 10 times faster than that of the last mass extinction about 65 million years ago, when 95% of marine and 70% of land species were wiped out. The kind of changes that would previously have happened over hundreds of thousands of years are now happening in decades.
To make the diversion possible, two temporary pylons were built nearby, and the overhead line pulled across. This ensured that the line could remain in service and energised, whilst new pylons were built and then older pylons removed.