Central Electricity Generating Board

In 1954, six years after nationalisation, the Government appointed the Herbert Committee to examine the efficiency and organisation of the electricity industry. The committee found that the British Electricity Authority's dual roles of electricity generation and supervision had led to central concentration of responsibility and to duplication between headquarters and divisional staff which led to delays in the commissioning of new stations. The Committee's recommendations were enacted by the Electricity Act 1957 which established the Electricity Council to oversee the industry and the CEGB with responsibility for generation and transmission.[3]

Power in Trust (1961) by Norman Sillman, at Staythorpe Power Station

The CEGB was established by section 2 of the Electricity Act 1957.[4] It consisted of a Generating Board comprising a chairman and seven to nine full-time or part-time members, appointed by the Minister of Power, who had experience or capacity in "the generation or supply of electricity, industrial, commercial or financial matters, applied science, administration, or the organisation of workers". The power of appointment later devolved to the Minister of Technology, then to the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry.

There were six chairmen of the CEGB:

• Christopher Hinton, Baron Hinton of Bankside, served from 1957 to 1964,
• Sir Stanley Brown served from 1965 to 1972,
• Sir Arthur Hawkins from 1972 to 1977,
• Glyn England from 1977 to 1982,
• Walter Marshall, Baron Marshall of Goring from 1982 to 1989,
• Gil Blackman was appointed chairman in January 1989 until 1990.[5]

The executive comprised the chairman and the full-time board members. The Headquarters Operations Department provided a service to the board and executive and could supply specialist staff.[2]

The chairman and two other members of the board plus the chairmen of the area boards were members of the Electricity Council.[2]

The design, construction and development functions associated with power stations and transmission was undertaken by two divisions: the Generation Development and Construction Division based in Cheltenham and then Marchwood Gloucester, and the Transmission Development and Construction Division based in Guildford.[2] In 1979 the Transmission Division had been restructured as the Transmission and Technical Services based in Guildford, and a Technology Planning and Research Division based in London, the latter was formed from the Research Division System Technical and Generation Studies Branches.[6][7]

A Corporate Strategy Department was formed in 1981 from some of the Planning Department. A Nuclear Operations Support Group was also formed in 1981 to provide expert support.[7]

The sculpture "Power in Trust" from the CEGB logo was made by Norman Sillman to represent a hand made from boiler pipes and a turbine, it was commissioned in the 1961 for the opening of Staythorpe B Power Station.[8]

When first constituted the CEGB's London headquarters was at the former Central Electricity Authority's building in Winsley Street W1, there were also offices in Buchanan House, 24/30 Holborn, London, EC1.[9]

There was a total of 131,178 employees in the electricity supply industry 1989, composed as follows:[10]

Those public supply power stations that were in operation at any time between 1958 and 1990 were owned and operated by the CEGB. In 1971–2 there were 183 power stations on 156 sites, with an installed capacity of 58,880.051 MW, and supplied 190,525 GWh.[2] By 1981–2 there were 108 power stations with a capacity of 55,185 MW and supplied 210,289 GWh.[6]

• Lists of power stations in the United Kingdom
• List of power stations in England
• List of power stations in Wales
• Nuclear power in the United Kingdom

At its inception the CEGB operated 2,763 circuit km of high-tension 275 kV supergrid. The growth of the high voltage National Grid over the lifetime of the CEGB is demonstrated in the following table.[3]

In 1981–2 there was a total of 203 substations operating at 275/400 kV, these sub-stations included 570 transformers operating at 275/400 kV.[6]

At the centre of operations was the National Control Centre of the National Grid in London, which was part of the control hierarchy for the system. The National Control Centre was based in Bankside House from 1962.[7] There were also both area and district Grid Control Areas, which were originally at Newcastle upon Tyne, Leeds, Manchester, Nottingham, Birmingham, St Albans, East Grinstead and Bristol. The shift control engineers who worked in these control centres would cost, schedule and load dispatch an economic commitment of generation to the main interconnected system (the 400/275/132kV network) at an adequate level of security. They also had information about the running costs and availability of every power producing plant in England and Wales. They constantly anticipated demand, monitored and instructed power stations to increase, reduce or stop electricity production. They used the "merit order", a ranking of each generator in power stations based upon how much they cost to produce electricity. The objective was to ensure that electricity production and transmission was achieved at the lowest possible cost.

In 1981 the 3-tier corporate transmission structure: National Control, Area Control Rooms in the Regions, and District Control Rooms (Areas) was changed to a 2-tier structure by merging the Area and District Control Rooms.[7]

The electricity generated, supplied and sold by the CEGB, in GWh, was as follows:[10]

Note: imports are bulk supplies from South of Scotland and France and from private sources, exports are bulk supplies from South of Scotland and France.

A summary of the income and expenditure of the CEGB (in £ million) is as follows:[10][11]

Detailed control of operational matters such planning, electricity generation, transmission and maintenance were delegated to five geographical Regions. From January 1971 each Region had a Director General, a Director of Generation, a Director of Operational Planning, a Director of Transmission, a Financial Controller, a Controller of Scientific Services and a Personnel Manager.[2]

Regional Headquarters: Haslucks Green Road, Shirley, Solihull, West Midlands.

The Midlands Region was responsible for the operation of 38 power stations, over 170 sub-stations and nearly 2,000 miles of grid transmission line in an area that covered 11,000 square miles. The region produced more than a quarter of the electricity used in England and Wales and had a major share of the industrial construction programme mounted by the CEGB during the 1960s.

In 1948 the total generating capacity of all the power stations in the region was 2,016 MW only a little more than a modern 2,000 MW station. By 1957 the region's capacity was up to 4,000 MW, doubling to 8,000 MW by 1966 and rising to 14,000 MW in 1969 and 16,000 MW by 1971.

Previous chairman of the Midlands Region were Arthur Hawkins, Gilbert Blackman, and R.L. Batley.[12][13]

Prior to 1968 the Midlands Region was divided into the West Midlands Division and the East Midlands Division.The number of power stations, installed capacity and electricity supplied in the Midlands Region was:[2][6]

Regional Headquarters: Merrion Centre, Leeds (1971). Beckwith Knowle, Otley Road, Harrogate.

Extending through Northumberland, Durham, Yorkshire and North Lincolnshire the North Eastern Region was responsible for the operation of 32 power stations capable of producing 8,000 MW of electricity. 108 substations and over 1,200 route miles of overhead lines transmitted the electricity to the Yorkshire Electricity Board and the North Eastern Electricity Board for passing onto the customer.

A previous chairman of the North Eastern Region was P.J. Squire.[13]

Prior to 1968 the North Eastern Region was divided into the Northern Division and the Yorkshire Division.The number of power stations, installed capacity and electricity supplied in the North Eastern Region was:[2][6]

Regional Headquarters: 825 Wilmslow Road, Manchester, M20 (1971). Europa House, Bird Hall Lane, Cheadle Heath, Stockport.

Previous chairman of the North Western Region were J.L. Ashworth and G.B. Jackson.[13]

The number of power stations, installed capacity and electricity supplied in the North Western Region was:[2][6]

Regional Headquarters: Bankside House, Summer Street, London.

Past chairman of the South Eastern Region were G.N. Stone, H.J. Bennett and F.W. Skelcher.[14][13]

Prior to 1968 the South Eastern Region was divided into the North Thames Division and the South Thames Division. The number of power stations, installed capacity and electricity supplied in the South Eastern Region was:[2][6]

Regional Headquarters: 15–23 Oakfield Grove, Clifton, Bristol (1971). Bedminster Down, Bridgwater Road, Bristol.

Previous chairman of the South Western Region were Douglas Pask, Roy Beatt, A.C. Thirtle and R.H. Coates.[14]

Prior to 1968 the South Western Region was divided into the Southern Division, the Western Division and the South Wales Division. The number of power stations, installed capacity and electricity supplied in the South Western Region was:[2][6]

The supplies of electricity from the CEGB Regions to the area electricity boards in 1971–2 and 1981–2 were as follows.[6][2] The average charge in 1971–2 was 0.6519 pence/kWh, in 1981–2 the charge was 3.0615 pence/kWh.

During the lifetime of the CEGB peak demand had more than doubled from 19,311 MW in 1958 to 47,925 MW in 1987. Sales of electricity had increased from 79.7 TWh in 1958 to 240 TWh in 1988.[3]

The CEGB had an extensive R&D section with its three principal laboratories at Leatherhead (Central Electricity Research Laboratories, CERL) (opened by the Minister of Power in May 1962),[7] Marchwood Engineering Laboratory (MEL), and Berkeley Nuclear Laboratories (BNL). There were also five regional facilities and four project groups, North, South, Midlands and the Transmission Project Group. These scientific service departments (SSD) had a base in each region. A major SSD role was solving engineering problems with the several designs of 500 MW units. These were a significant increase in unit size and had many teething problems, most of which were solved to result in reliable service and gave good experience towards the design of the 660 MW units.

In the 1970s and 1980s, for the real-time control of power stations the R&D team developed the Cutlass programming language and application system. After privatisation, CUTLASS systems in National Power were phased out and replaced largely with Advanced Plant Management System (APMS) – a SCADA solution developed in partnership by RWE npower (a descendant company of CEGB) and Thales UK.[15] APMS itself has since become obsolete. However, Eggborough was the last station, particularly unit 2; fully operated using APMS until its decommissioning in 2017.

In contrast, PowerGen, later taken over by E.ON (which further split to form Uniper), undertook a programme to port the entire system to current hardware. The most current version of Cutlass, 'PT-Cutlass Kit 9', runs on Motorola PPC-based hardware, with the engineering workstation and administrative functions provided by a standard Microsoft Windows PC. It is fully compatible (with a few minor exceptions) with the DEC PDP-11 version (kit 1) released by PowerGen and has a high level of compatibility with the final version of kit 1 formerly used at National Power.[16] It is used at three UK power stations: Ratcliffe-on-Soar, Cottam, and Fiddlers Ferry.

A 1978 government white paper Re-organisation of the Electricity Supply in England and Wales proposed the creation of an Electricity Corporation to unify the fragmented structure of the industry. Parliamentary constraints prevented its enactment.[7]

A report by the Monopolies and Mergers Commission, Central Electricity Generating Board: a Report on the Operation by the Board of its system for the generation and supply of Electricity in bulk was published in 1981. The report found that the CEGB's operations were efficient but that their investment appraisal operated against the public interest.[7]

In 1964 the CEGB chose the Advanced Gas-cooled Reactor, developed by the United Kingdom Atomic Energy Authority, for a programme of new station construction. The five stations were: Dungeness B, Hinkley Point B, Hartlepool, Heysham and Hunterston B.[7]

In 1976 the CEGB introduced an accelerated power station closure programme. On 25 October 23 power stations were closed and 18 partly closed, with a combined capacity of 2,884 MW. Six further stations with a capacity of 649 MW were closed in March 1977.[7][17]

In 1979 the CEGB and the National Coal Board entered a joint understanding that the CEGB would endeavour to take 75 million tonnes of coal per year to 1985 provided the pithead price did not increase above the rate of inflation.[7]

In 1981 the CEGB applied for planning consent to build a 1,200 MW pressurized water reactor at Sizewell. There was a lengthy public inquiry.[7]

In 1981 the CEGB introduced another accelerated power station closure programme. On 26 October 16 power stations were closed with a combined capacity of 3,402 MW. A further 1,320 MW of capacity was maintained unmanned in reserve.[7][17]