National Grid launches £8bn partnership to boost Britain’s clean energy

National Grid has introduced a transformative new approach to the way it works with Britain’s supply chain, designed to accelerate the delivery of £8 billion worth of vital substation infrastructure across England and Wales and support the UK’s clean energy transition.

The Electricity Transmission Partnership (ETP) remodels how National Grid engages with suppliers, moving to a longer-term collaborative approach that builds strong regional partnerships and rewards partners for high-quality performance over time.

The initiative awards regional exclusivity of substation work to ETP partners based on how well they perform and their commitment
to expanding their capacity, an approach that aims to strengthen the UK supply chain, encourage long term investment, and support the development of local skills and capability.

It also marks a major boost to National Grid’s ambitious RIIO-T3 investment plan, which proposes up to £35 billion investment in the transmission network in England and Wales over the five years to March 2031, including to build new substations or upgrade existing ones.

As part of the ETP, National Grid expects to award around £8 billion worth of substation construction work over the RIIO-T3 period,
covering multiple regions and around 130 projects.

In July, National Grid awarded regional delivery partner status to several successful suppliers, as well as allocating an initial £1.3 billion worth of exclusive work whose contracts will be awarded at a later stage.

Regional delivery partners include:

* Balfour Beatty – North East region
* Morgan Sindall Infrastructure – North West region
* Murphy – South West (region one) and London & South East region
* M Group Energy – South West (region two)
* OTW – Central West region

The awards mean partners will have
first refusal of future substation work in the pipeline in their region, providing them with the certainty they need to invest in growth and capability.

Two national partners, Linxon and Burns & McDonnell, will support delivery of substation work that falls outside the scope of the regional partners’ portfolios.

The ETP complements other pioneering initiatives in National Grid’s evolving supply chain ecosystem, including the Great Grid Partnership (GGP) and a new high voltage direct current (HVDC) supply chain framework. Together, these programmes are designed to provide greater capacity and resilience across multiple infrastructure
construction portfolios.

The ETP model has the potential to be expanded beyond substations in the future to include other network infrastructure, ensuring a consistent and innovative approach to bolstering the supply chain across National Grid’s entire transmission network in England and Wales.

Energy Minister Michael Shanks said: “The clean energy transition is the economic opportunity of the 21st century, with the potential to revitalise our industrial heartlands with skilled jobs and economic growth. 

“This £8 billion partnership from National Grid is proof of that – providing a boost for Britain’s supply chains, investing in the future of our highly skilled workforce and helping to deliver clean, homegrown power that we control.”