National Grid Electricity Distribution

Here's our President, Cordi O'Hara OBE FEI giving an update on Storm Darragh, the biggest storm our region has faced in decades. 🔴 🟠 We saw rare red warnings covering a significant part of our region on Saturday, with the rest covered by amber warnings. 👷♂️ 👷♀️ Our engineers, control rooms, contact centres and support teams have been working around the clock to maintain power across the network and have restored over 1.8 million customers since the storm hit in the early hours of Saturday morning. 🔧 We are maximising our resources and brining people from less impacted areas to support the effort. Our priority is to ensure the network is safe and that all customers are back on supply as soon as possible. ❗ We continue to see extremely high volumes of calls to our contact centre and unfortuantely it is taking a little longer for customers to get through. In addition to the contact centre, customers can reach us via social media and our website: https://lnkd.in/e8J9cph8 We want to thank customers for their patience and understanding and assure you all that we are doing everything we can to get power restored across the region as soon as possible. 

👷♂️ Linesperson Leaim knows what it’s like to face additional challenges at work. Being autistic and dyslexic, he has first hand experience of neurodiversity and the very real need for tailored support and understanding. He said: “My experience of neurodiversity is very personal and current. “Sometimes it means that others take things I say the wrong way and not as I intended – or it can work the other way and I misunderstand others’ comments, especially if they’re not clear. “Really busy areas and noise can cause significant distress - which is obviously an issue in an operational role – so I always carry noise-reducing ear buds and fidget toys which help a lot. “Neurodiversity is a huge topic and it’s far more common than people realise. In our business, there are many neurodiverse colleagues and, in our daily activities, our field staff and call centre staff interact with far more neurodiverse people than most. So it’s important to try and raise awareness, for our colleagues and our customers. “If you are neurodiverse, there is help available - but a lot more needs to be done to understand and support those affected. By talking about my experience, I hope I can be part of that change.” 🙏 Leaim is a Mental Health First Aider and a member of our ‘Enabling’ Employee Group where he is helping to drive change and aid understanding of neurodiversity issues. #IDPD #CelebrateDifference #InclusionMatters

🙏 When Trainee Engineer Isaac was diagnosed with an aggressive brain tumour earlier this year, his colleagues at our Hinckley depot were determined to help his family fund potentially life-saving immunotherapy treatment for the 21-year-old. ❤️ This short video explains how Isaac's story inspired a whole depot to pull together in a phenomenal fundraising effort. 📱 There's still more money to raise so, to donate to Isaac's GoFundMe page and boost his chance of survival, please follow this link or scan the QR code at the end of the video: https://bit.ly/4ij4bDB #Colleagues #Fundraising #Immunotherapy

📣 Is your local authority switched on to decarbonisation? 🌳 In the latest issue of our 'Switched On' newsletter for local authorities, you'll find updates on the work we're doing to facilitate a low carbon energy future in the communities we serve. ⚡ There's also lots of useful information to help local authorities with their Local Area Energy Planning and share best practice. Read on for details of: 🌍 Network Development Plans and the role they play in our strategic investment process 🌍 Innovative work going on at South Gloucestershire Council which has embarked on plans to make the area carbon neutral 🌍 The latest stakeholder engagement webinars that took place in October. #Decarbonisation #LocalAuthorities #DSO

🙏 Nothing is more important to us than the safety of our colleagues, our customers and our network - so these workshops are a great way of underpinning and reinforcing our key safety principles. We're looking forward to seeing even more of our colleagues engage with the workshops in the weeks ahead!

Electricity supplies have been restored to all customers affected by Storm Bert. The second named storm of the autumn/winter brought 67mph gusts and hours of torrential rain to our region over the weekend, with the South West badly affected. Hundreds of our engineers worked around the clock in difficult weather conditions to get the power back on for more than 300,000 customers, supported by control room teams managing the network in real-time as faults occurred. In some areas where outages were prolonged, teams provided battery packs for customers who were waiting for their supplies to be restored. Extra employees were drafted in to support our contact centres as they helped answer more than 17,000 customer calls.

📣 Connections reform is on the way! 📣 🔌 To enable the connections process to keep pace with today's rapidly-changing energy landscape, customers planning a connection to our network are being encouraged to prepare now for connections reform - and to have their say in the latest consultation. ✅ Reform is being led by the National Energy System Operator (NESO) which is urging customers to gather project evidence in advance, on issues such as land rights, ownership and planning permission, to prove their projects are ready to proceed. This will help to ensure there are no delays in processing projects when the reforms kick in. 📅 From February 2025, the focus is expected to shift away from the traditional 'first come, first served' model to a 'first ready, first connected' approach. This will mean non-viable projects are removed from the connections queue, making way for projects that are viable and ready to connect. 💬 Customers can give their feedback now on proposed connections reform in an open consultation being run by NESO until 2 December. If you'd like to help shape connections reform, and find out how reforms may affect your projects, find out more here 👉 https://lnkd.in/eyahYzSU #Connections #Reform #Consultation

💚 We're proud to support Regen's Green Energy Awards. 💚 👍 As a sponsor of this event, we're excited to announce that nominations are now open. 🎉 Celebrating the leaders and innovators in the net zero energy transition, these awards recognise their key role in the drive towards a clean energy future. ⏳ Deadline for nominations is 18 December: https://lnkd.in/en7GFECE #GreenEnergyAwards #GEA2025 #NetZero

📣 We're excited to publish the results of our local flexibility consultation in partnership with UK Power Networks. 🔐 This report shares insights from flexibility providers along with our next steps to create a more unified and accessible flexibility market. Highlights include: 📅 Common approach to day-ahead procurement. In 2025, we'll align with UK Power Networks on day-ahead timings, reducing complexity for providers and improving stacking opportunities ⚡ Simpler baselines. UK Power Networks has extended its application of fixed baselines for long term flexibility procurement, in line with our approach. 📊 Data transparency. By Spring 2025, both Distribution System Operators (DSO) will publish enhanced data on the operational performance of flexibility, helping to build confidence in its reliability. 🤝 Throughout the process, we have been sharing what we're learning with the Energy Networks Association (ENA)'s Open Networks programme and the new market facilitator, Elexon. 📚 We're also publishing the full set of anonymised stakeholder responses, to help accelerate learning across the industry. Read the full report to see how your feedback is shaping the future of local flexibility. 👇 #flexibility #DSO #collaboration

♻ We're now powering some of our non-electric vehicles with recycled vegetable oil! ⛽ The trial, which is taking place at our depot in Boston, Lincolnshire, is using Hydrotreated Vegetable Oil (HVO) as an alternative to diesel in vehicles driven by our linespeople, engineers and technicians. 🔌 We've already added 1,000 electric vehicles (EV) to our fleet - but HVO is an important stopgap to help us reduce carbon emissions and meet our decarbonisation targets, especially where suitable EV alternatives are not yet available. ⚡ Results of the trial have shown an 89% reduction in CO2 emissions, which means we can reduce our impact on the environment now, while charging ahead to an electric future! Find out more: https://bit.ly/4fCqh2c #SustainableFuel #Decarbonisation #Recycling