chapter 4

A safe and reliable network

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.

We have over 14,000 circuit kilometres of overhead line, 3,000 circuit kilometres of underground cables and over 300 substations, providing the electricity stakeholders and end consumers rely on.

What this stakeholder priority is about

Our main responsibility as a transmission owner is to ensure a safe and reliable electricity transmission network. Our network needs to be available to our customers, when they need it, to provide secure power supplies for consumers.

To fulfil this role, we need to maintain high safety standards that protect our employees, contractors, stakeholders and the public. To achieve the level of reliability expected by our stakeholders, we need to keep our assets in a healthy condition.

This means monitoring their condition, and intervening at the right time to maintain, refurbish or replace them.

 

What you can find in this chapter

  1. What this stakeholder priority is about
     

  2. Track record and implications for T2
     

  3. What our stakeholders are telling us
     

  4. Our proposals for the T2 period
     

  5. The justification for our proposals
     

  6. Our proposed costs for the T2 period
     

  7. How we will manage risk and uncertainty

Business Plan Chapter
Engagement Log

End to end description of stakeholder engagement and how it has influenced our plan

Engagement Log

Investment Decision Packs
Business Plan Annexes

T1 - T2 Interactions Annex

Shows how the asset management decisions taken in RIIO-T1 have benefitted consumers in RIIO-T2 and beyond

ENS incentive annex

Proposals for an incentive on network reliability

NLR Plan Build

Description of how we have built and optimised the plan to ensure long term health and reliability of assets
 

Summary of Outputs

Lead Asset outputs

Stakeholder feedback

Proposal

T2 baseline value

Consumer benefit

Complywith all relevant safety legislation.

Maintain our safety standards, aiming for zero harm to our employees, contractors, stakeholders and the public.

N/A

Protected from potential harm relating to the work we carry out on our assets.

Maintain levels of reliability, at an affordable cost. Recent ENS performance should be weighted more heavily than long-term performance.

Create a tougher T2 target for ENS which more heavily weights recent performance.

Independent Stakeholders Group to provide challenge throughout the T2 period.

N/A

World class levels of reliability.

Maintain access to critical energy supplies when needed.

Maintain levels of network risk, at an affordable cost.

Ensure short-term decisions do not limit future system opportunities.

We will maintain our network risk position through condition monitoring, maintenance, repair, refurbishment and replacement of our assets.

We will deliver this work at lowest cost (on average per unit) by embedding innovation.

£2,251m

Long-term reliability, at a lower cost, for current and future consumers.

Modernisation of the network to support digitization, through the renewal of assets.

 

Non-Lead Asset outputs

Stakeholder feedback

Proposal

Non baseline value

Consumer benefit

Maintain levels of network risk, at an affordable cost.

Ensure short-term decisions do not limit future system opportunities.

We are proposing more outputs for our non-lead areas. Along with NARM, this will provide coverage for over 80% of our plan for this priority. We are committing to develop NARM outputs for more substation and circuit assets in T2.

£1,368m

Long-term reliability, at a lower cost, for current and future consumers.

Modernisation of the network to support digitization, through the renewal of assets.

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