IEE Control & Automation Division: Chairman´s address. Control and operation of the UK electricity supply system: an account of its development

Over the past few years, control engineers have been increasingly interested in the control and operation of large systems that are usually hierarchical in structure and involve not only the control of parts of a large complex plant and of the plant as an integrated whole, but also of systems of such plants. The national system for the generation and transmission of electric power is just such a system. The CEGB system is operated essentially manually, and big advances have been made over the years in the facilities provided to the operators of both generating plant and system. The Address outlines briefly the development of these facilities, from the early power stations, through their gradual integration into an interconnected system, to the present day. It concludes with a brief reference to some interesting experimental work in control and an attempt to identify the control problems of the future.