About us

We own and operate the gas National Transmission System (NTS) in Great Britain, with day-to-day responsibility for balancing supply and demand. Our network comprises approximately*7,630 kilometres (4,760 miles) of high-pressure pipe and more than 500 above-ground installations.

Jon Butterworth

Chief Executive Officer

Dr Phil Nolan

Chair

Nick Hooper

Chief Financial Officer

Cathryn Ross

Sufficiently Independent Director

Will Price

Managing Director, Macquarie

Mark Mathieson

Managing Director, Macquarie

Howard Higgins

Adviser to Macquarie

Lincoln Webb

Executive Vice President, BCI

Jerry Divoky

Vice President, BCI

Ben Wilson

Chief Strategy and External Affairs Officer, National Grid

About us

Our new Board came into operation on 31 January 2023.

Our Board

Jon Butterworth, Chief Executive Officer

Jon began his career in the energy sector over 40 years ago as an apprentice technician in British Gas.  He is an experienced leader with a strong track record of building and running successful businesses in both regulated and competitive energy markets across the UK, Europe and the US.

Previous roles include that of Chief Executive of National Grid Ventures, Global Director of Safety, Health, Environment, Resilience and Incident Command for National Grid plc and General Manager and MD of Transco North west running the UK Gas Emegency service. Jon is currently President of the Pipeline Industries Guild. 

Jon was awarded an MBE in 2009 for services to Britain’s gas industry and is a Fellow of the Institute of Directors. He is a non-executive director of Pennon Group plc and a Director of the National Gas Museum Trust. He has been married for over 37 years and has three children. 

Dr Phil Nolan, Chair

Phil joined the National Gas Transmission Board and was appointed as the Chair of the Company and Sufficiently Independent Director on 31 January 2023.

Phil has served on the board of many public and private companies, both in an executive and non-executive capacity. He has industry experience as Executive Director of BG Group plc and Chief Executive of Transco plc between 1998 and 2000.  Phil also led the demerger of Transco from BG Group plc, as the Chief Executive of Lattice Group.

Phil is currently the Chair of Associated British Ports, a leading UK ports group. He has also served as the Chair of John Laing between 2010 and 2018, Ulster Bank Limited, Ulster Bank Ireland Limited (a subsidiary of Ulster Bank Limited) between July 2013 and July 2017 and Encyclis HoldCo Limited between November 2022 and December 2023. Other previous roles include the Chair of Affinity Water; non-executive director of EnQuest PLC; Chair of Infinis; Chair of Sepura plc and Chief Executive of Eircom, Ireland's national telecommunications supplier.

Nick Hooper, Chief Financial Officer

Nick joined National Grid in 2014 and was the Chief Financial Officer for National Grid Ventures before taking on the role as the Chief Finance Officer for the National Grid Gas and Metering business in August 2021. Nick has held a number of senior finance roles, including eight years as Finance Director at Capita. 

Cathryn Ross

Cathryn joined the Board as a Sufficiently Independent Director on the National Grid Gas plc board in June 2019. She is the Strategy and Regulatory Affairs Director at Thames Water. Cathryn has extensive experience in strategy regulation having worked in regulatory roles for a number of large business, including BT Group plc, Ofwat, and the Office of Rail Regulation (now the Office of Rail and Road).  Cathryn is also a non-executive director of the Institute of Customer Service and was the inaugural Chair of the Regulatory Horizons Council, an independent committee established by BEIS.

Will Price

Will joined the Board on 31 January 2023. Will is Head of Utilities in EMEA at Macquarie Asset Management. He has been involved in several utilities acquisitions, including Wales & West Utilities, Thyssengas, Czech Grid Holding, EP Infrastructure, Viesgo, CEZ Romania, and Southern Water. He has extensive experience in key asset management initiatives including regulatory resets and re-financings, a consensual restructuring of National Car Parks, separation and transition of EP Infrastructure and Czech Gas Networks, and the disposal of Viesgo. Will currently serves as a director on the board of Southern Water, EP Infrastructure, and Czech Grid Holding.

Mark Mathieson

Mark joined the Board on 31 January 2023. Mark was appointed as a Managing Director in Macquarie Asset Management in October 2018. Prior to that, he spent 26 years at SSE, including ten years as the Managing Director for their electricity network businesses. He serves the boards of Cadent Gas Networks, Nortegas Energia Grupo (Spain), and Distributie Energie Oltenia SA, an electricity distribution network in Romania.

Previously Mark was the Chief Executive at Green Highlands Renewables, the UK’s leading developer of run-of-river hydro-electric schemes. Mark has over 30 years of executive and non-executive experience in energy utility sector, including non-executive director at the Smart DCC, the company responsible for the role out of the central infrastructure of the UK smart metering roll out, and chair of the Energy Networks Association and EA Technology. Mark is a Chartered Engineer, and a Fellow of the Institution of Engineering and Technology.

Howard Higgins

Howard joined the Board on 31 January 2023 and has played a key role in global energy and utility transactions and transitions undertaken by Macquarie Asset Management since he joined in 2003.

In his role as Senior Advisor, Howard provides specialist support on the acquisition, transition and management of energy and utility businesses and sits on a number of company boards within Macquarie Asset Management’s investment portfolio. Howard has accountability for cyber security compliance at Board level.

Howard's prior roles include CEO of BG Storage and Operations Director of Transco and Cadent Gas Networks. Howard is a Chartered Engineer and a member of the Institution of Mechanical Engineers.

Lincoln Webb

Lincoln joined the Board on 31 January 2023 and is an Executive Vice President and Global Head of British Columbia Investment Management Corporation’s (BCI) global Infrastructure & Renewable Resources group. Lincoln joined BCI in 2002 and leads the management of investments across 30 countries and all major infrastructure sectors.

He holds a number of different board positions for companies within BCI’s investment portfolio, including roles on the presidential and supervisory boards of Open Grid Europe, and the boards of Cleco Corporation, Endeavour Energy, Glencore Agriculture, Teays River Investments LLC, TimberWest Forest Corporation, and Corix Infrastructure.

Jerry Divoky

Jerry joined the Board on 31 January 2023 and is a Vice President of British Columbia Investment Management Corporation’s (BCI) global Infrastructure & Renewable Resources group with investments across 30 countries and all major infrastructure sectors.

He joined BCI in 2004 and is responsible for sourcing, executing and managing private direct investments in infrastructure with a focus on utilities, transportation and energy. Jerry has over 20 years experience in acquisitions including 10 years in energy & banking, He holds a number of different board positions for companies within BCI’s investment portfolio, including Pacific National, Global Container Terminals, and Endeavour Energy. Prior board appointments include Thames Water, Transelec, Dalrymple Bay Coal Terminal, Isagen, NTS, Arteris, and GCT Global Container Terminals Inc.

Ben Wilson

Ben joined the Board in November 2021 and was the chair of the Board until the end of January 2023. He is the Chief Strategy and External Affairs Officer of National Grid plc and has more than 25 years’ experience in the energy sector. His focus areas include strategy, regulation, external affairs, stakeholder engagement, M&A, innovation and sustainability.

Prior to joining National Grid, Ben was the Chief Executive Officer of Australian Gas Infrastructure Group (AGIG), one of the largest utility infrastructure businesses in Australia; and the Director of Strategy & Regulation and Chief Financial Officer of UK Power Networks. Before moving into industry, Ben spent 15 years as an energy and utilities investment banker, working in Europe and Asia.

Our Owners

Macquarie Asset Management is a global asset manager that aims to deliver positive impact for everyone. As the world’s largest infrastructure asset manager, it is trusted by institutions, pension funds, governments, and individuals, to manage investments in business across the world relied on by millions of people each day.

British Columbia Investment Management Corporation (BCI) is amongst the largest institutional investors in Canada. Based in Victoria, British Columbia, with offices in Vancouver and New York City, BCI is invested in: fixed income and private debt; public and private equity; infrastructure and renewable resources; as well as real estate equity and real estate debt through our independently operated platform company QuadReal Property Group. BCI’s infrastructure & renewable resources program invests in tangible long-life assets in the Americas, Europe, and Asia Pacific, including a portfolio of direct investments in regulated utilities, energy, telecommunications, transportation, timberlands, and agri-businesses.

Together, Macquarie and BCI have a controlling 80% stake in our business.

National Grid retains a 20% stake in National Gas Transmission.

 

Our Licence

Our licence is established under the Gas Act 1986. It requires us to develop, maintain, and operate economic and efficient networks and to facilitate competition in the supply of gas in Great Britain (GB). The licence also gives us statutory powers, including the right to bury our pipes under public highways and the ability to use compulsory powers to purchase land so we can conduct our business.

 

Price controls

Our Gas Transmission business operates under one price control, covering our role as transmission owner (TO) and system operator (SO).

In addition to the price controls, there is also a tariff cap price control applied to certain elements of domestic metering and daily meter reading activities carried out by National Gas Metering.

Our regulatory framework is called RIIO (revenue = incentives + innovation + outputs) and lasts for five years. The current period started on 1 April 2021 and runs through until 31 March 2026. The building blocks of the RIIO price control are broadly similar to the historical price controls used in the UK, but with some significant differences in the mechanics of the calculations. You can find out more information on our price controls by visiting our How we're regulated page.
 

European institutions and associations

We are a member or participant of the following institutions and associations that meet on European issues.

InstitutionOverview
Gas Infrastructure Europe (GIE)Gas infrastructure Europe (GIE) represents 67 companies from 25 countries that operate gas infrastructure across Europe. GIE aims to find market-based solutions which best meets the interests of its members.
Energy Network Association (ENA)The Energy Networks Association (ENA) represents the electricity and gas transmission and distribution network operators in the UK and Ireland. Their goal is to promote safe, reliable, efficient and sustainable networks.
MARCOGAZMARCOGAZ is a non-profit international association founded in 1968 and represents the European gas industry on all technical aspects of the gas system’s full value chain. It represents the interests of national and European gas associations as well as the individual gas companies’ members spread across Europe.

 

Information for Institutional Investors

Follow this link for our initial information for debt investors.