Abstract :
As the world´s first privately-owned independent transmission company, National Grid (NGC) has almost a decade´s experience at the heart of a radically changing electricity market in England and Wales. Since its formation in 1990, NGC has advanced beyond addressing the initial question of how to ´keep the lights on´ in a disaggregated industry. Within an environment far removed from the centrally-controlled days of the Central Electricity Generating Board, NGC is now creating market solutions for an ever greater range of transmission activities. In particular NGC has developed the complex roles of network manager and system controller. This experience should add significantly to the knowledge being gathered internationally about the liberalisation of energy industries.