The Central Electricity Generating Board (CEGB) was responsible for electricity generation, transmission and bulk sales in

England and Wales England and Wales () is one of the three legal jurisdictions of the United Kingdom. It covers the constituent countries England and Wales and was formed by the Laws in Wales Acts 1535 and 1542. The substantive law of the jurisdiction is Eng ...

from 1958 until

privatisation Privatization (also privatisation in British English) can mean several different things, most commonly referring to moving something from the public sector into the private sector. It is also sometimes used as a synonym for deregulation when ...

of the electricity industry in the 1990s. It was established on 1 January 1958 to assume the functions of the

Central Electricity Authority The Central Electricity Authority (CEA) was a body that managed and operated the electricity supply industry in England and Wales between 1 April 1955 and 31 December 1957. The CEA replaced the earlier British Electricity Authority (BEA) as a r ...

(1955–7), which had in turn replaced the British Electricity Authority (1948–55). The

Electricity Council The Electricity Council was a governmental body set up in 1958 to oversee the electricity supply industry in England and Wales. The council was established on 1 January 1958 to assume the coordinating and policy-making functions of the Central El ...

was also established in January 1958, as the coordinating and policy-making body for the British electricity supply industry.

Responsibilities

The CEGB was responsible for electricity generation, transmission and bulk sales in

, whilst in Scotland electricity generation was carried out by the

South of Scotland Electricity Board The South of Scotland Electricity Board (SSEB) generated, transmitted and distributed electricity throughout the south of Scotland, including the former regions of Strathclyde, Lothian, Fife, Central, Borders and Dumfries and Galloway and a few t ...

and the

North of Scotland Hydro-Electric Board The North of Scotland Hydro-Electric Board (1943–1990) was founded to design, construct and manage hydroelectricity projects in the Highlands of Scotland. It is regarded as one of the major achievements of Scottish politician Thomas Johnston, w ...

. The CEGB's duty was to develop and maintain an efficient, coordinated and economical system of supply of electricity in bulk for England and Wales, and for that purpose to generate or acquire supplies of electricity and to provide bulk supplies of electricity for the area electricity boards for distribution. It also had power to supply bulk electricity to the Scottish boards or electricity undertakings outside Great Britain. The organisation was unusual in that most of its senior staff were professional engineers, supported in financial and risk-management areas.

Corporate structure

Background

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 The Electricity Act 1957 (repealed 1989) was an Act of Parliament of the United Kingdom. The principal impact of the Act was the dissolution of the Central Electricity Authority (UK), which it replaced with the Central Electricity Generating Boar ...

which established the Electricity Council to oversee the industry and the CEGB with responsibility for generation and transmission.

Constitution

Power In Trust sculpture (geograph 4882572)

The CEGB was established by section 2 of the ''Electricity Act 1957''. 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 The secretary of state for business, energy and industrial strategy, is a secretary of state in the Government of the United Kingdom, with responsibility for the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy. The incumbent is a memb ...

. There were six chairmen of the CEGB: * Christopher Hinton, Baron Hinton of Bankside, served from 1957 to 1964, *

Sir Stanley Brown Sir Frederick Herbert Stanley Brown (9 December 1910 – 1997) was an English mechanical and electrical engineer. Born in Birmingham and educated at the King Edward's School, Birmingham he then went on to the University of Birmingham where he g ...

served from 1965 to 1972, *

Sir Arthur Hawkins Sir Arthur Ernest Hawkins (10 June 1913 – 13 January 1999) was an English mechanical and electrical engineer. Born in Lympley Stoke, Bath, Somerset and educated at the Great Yarmouth High School. He joined the CEGB and was heavily ...

from 1972 to 1977, *

Glyn England Glyn (Glynne) England (1921-2013) was a British electrical engineer. Early life He attended Penarth County Grammar School (now Stanwell School), then Queen Mary College in London. Career Prior to World War II, he was scientific assistant w ...

from 1977 to 1982, *

Walter Marshall, Baron Marshall of Goring Walter Charles Marshall, Baron Marshall of Goring (5 March 1932 in Rumney, Cardiff – 20 February 1996, in London) was a noted theoretical physicist and leader in the UK's energy sector. Early life The son of Frank Marshall and Amy Pearson, ...

from 1982 to 1989, * Gil Blackman was appointed chairman in January 1989 until 1990. 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. The chairman and two other members of the board plus the chairmen of the area boards were members of the Electricity Council.

Organisation

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 Barnwood Gloucester, and the Transmission Development and Construction Division based in Guildford. In 1979 the Transmission Division had been restructured as the Transmission and Technical Services Division 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. 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. The sculpture "Power in Trust" from the CEGB logo was made by

Norman Sillman Norman Henry Sillman, ARCA, FRBS (4 May 1921 – 18 July 2013) was a British sculptor and a coin designer, including the one pound coins for the Royal Mint.Staythorpe B Power Station. 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.

Employees

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

Infrastructure

The CEGB spent more on industrial construction than any other organisation in the UK. In 1958 about 40 power stations were being planned or constructed at a capital cost of £800 million.

Power stations

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. By 1981–2 there were 108 power stations with a capacity of 55,185 MW and supplied 210,289 GWh. *

Lists of power stations in the United Kingdom The following pages list the power stations in the United Kingdom, by region: * List of power stations in England * List of power stations in Northern Ireland * List of power stations in Scotland * List of power stations in Wales The following p ...

List of power stations in England This is a list of current and former electricity-generating power stations in England. For lists sorted by type, including proposed stations, see the see also section below. :''Note that BEIS maintaina comprehensive list of UK power stations'' ...

List of power stations in Wales This is a list of electricity-generating power stations in Wales, sorted by type and name, with installed capacity (May 2007). Note that the DBERR maintains a comprehensive list of operational UK power stations her Biomass Biomass power station ...

* Nuclear power in the United Kingdom

National Grid

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.

Substations

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.

Operations

Control of generation and the National Grid

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. There were also both area and district Grid Control Areas, which were originally at

Newcastle upon Tyne Newcastle upon Tyne ( RP: , ), or simply Newcastle, is a city and metropolitan borough in Tyne and Wear, England. The city is located on the River Tyne's northern bank and forms the largest part of the Tyneside built-up area. Newcastle is ...

Leeds Leeds () is a city and the administrative centre of the City of Leeds district in West Yorkshire, England. It is built around the River Aire and is in the eastern foothills of the Pennines. It is also the third-largest settlement (by populati ...

, Manchester,

Nottingham Nottingham ( , East Midlands English, locally ) is a city status in the United Kingdom, city and Unitary authorities of England, unitary authority area in Nottinghamshire, East Midlands, England. It is located north-west of London, south-east ...

, Birmingham,

St Albans St Albans () is a cathedral city in Hertfordshire, England, east of Hemel Hempstead and west of Hatfield, Hertfordshire, Hatfield, north-west of London, south-west of Welwyn Garden City and south-east of Luton. St Albans was the first major ...

East Grinstead East Grinstead is a town in West Sussex, England, near the East Sussex, Surrey, and Kent borders, south of London, northeast of Brighton, and northeast of the county town of Chichester. Situated in the extreme northeast of the county, the civ ...

and

Bristol Bristol () is a city, ceremonial county and unitary authority in England. Situated on the River Avon, it is bordered by the ceremonial counties of Gloucestershire to the north and Somerset to the south. Bristol is the most populous city in ...

. 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 The merit order is a way of ranking available sources of energy, especially electrical generation, based on ascending order of price (which may reflect the order of their short-run marginal costs of production) and sometimes pollution, together w ...

", 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 three-tier corporate transmission structure: National Control, area control rooms in the regions, and district control rooms (areas) was changed to a two-tier structure by merging the area and district control rooms.

Electricity supplies and sales

The electricity generated, supplied and sold by the CEGB, in GWh, was as follows: Note: imports are bulk supplies from the South of Scotland and France and from private sources, exports are bulk supplies to the South of Scotland and France.

Financial statistics

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

Regions

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 nanager.

Midlands Region

Regional headquarters: Haslucks Green Road, Shirley,

Solihull Solihull (, or ) is a market town and the administrative centre of the wider Metropolitan Borough of Solihull in West Midlands County, England. The town had a population of 126,577 at the 2021 Census. Solihull is situated on the River Blythe i ...

, 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 chairmen of the Midlands Region were Arthur Hawkins, Gilbert Blackman, and R. L. Batley.CEGB Publicity Brochure dated March 1964 and January 1967 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:

North Eastern Region

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

Harrogate Harrogate ( ) is a spa town and the administrative centre of the Borough of Harrogate in North Yorkshire, England. Historic counties of England, Historically in the West Riding of Yorkshire, the town is a tourist destination and its visitor at ...

. Extending through

Northumberland Northumberland () is a county in Northern England, one of two counties in England which border with Scotland. Notable landmarks in the county include Alnwick Castle, Bamburgh Castle, Hadrian's Wall and Hexham Abbey. It is bordered by land on ...

Durham Durham most commonly refers to: *Durham, England, a cathedral city and the county town of County Durham *County Durham, an English county * Durham County, North Carolina, a county in North Carolina, United States *Durham, North Carolina, a city in N ...

Yorkshire Yorkshire ( ; abbreviated Yorks), formally known as the County of York, is a Historic counties of England, historic county in northern England and by far the largest in the United Kingdom. Because of its large area in comparison with other Eng ...

and North

Lincolnshire Lincolnshire (abbreviated Lincs.) is a county in the East Midlands of England, with a long coastline on the North Sea to the east. It borders Norfolk to the south-east, Cambridgeshire to the south, Rutland to the south-west, Leicestershire ...

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 Yorkshire Electricity was an electricity distribution utility in England, serving much of Yorkshire and parts of Derbyshire, Lincolnshire and Nottinghamshire. History Formed as the Yorkshire Electricity Board in 1948 as part of the nationalisat ...

and the

North Eastern Electricity Board North Eastern Electricity Board was an electricity distribution utility in England, serving the North East of England. History Formed as the North Eastern Electricity Board (NEEB) in 1948 as part of the nationalisation of the electricity indust ...

for passing onto the customer. A previous chairman of the North Eastern Region was P.J. Squire. 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:

North Western Region

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

Stockport Stockport is a town and borough in Greater Manchester, England, south-east of Manchester, south-west of Ashton-under-Lyne and north of Macclesfield. The River Goyt and Tame merge to create the River Mersey here. Most of the town is within ...

. Previous chairman of the North Western Region were J.L. Ashworth and G.B. Jackson. The number of power stations, installed capacity and electricity supplied in the North Western Region was:

South Eastern Region

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. 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:

South Western Region

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

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

Supplies to area boards

The supplies of electricity from the CEGB Regions to the area electricity boards in 1971–2 and 1981–2 were as follows. 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.

Research and development

The CEGB had an extensive R&D section with its three principal laboratories at

Leatherhead Leatherhead is a town in the Mole Valley District of Surrey, England, about south of Central London. The settlement grew up beside a ford on the River Mole, from which its name is thought to derive. During the late Anglo-Saxon period, Leath ...

(Central Electricity Research Laboratories, CERL) (opened by the Minister of Power in May 1962),

Marchwood Marchwood is a village and civil parish located in Hampshire, England, United Kingdom. It lies between Totton and Hythe on the western shore of Southampton Water and directly east of the New Forest. The population of the village in the 20 ...

Engineering Laboratory (MEL), and

Berkeley Berkeley most often refers to: *Berkeley, California, a city in the United States **University of California, Berkeley, a public university in Berkeley, California * George Berkeley (1685–1753), Anglo-Irish philosopher Berkeley may also refer ...

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 The Advanced Plant Management System (APMS) is a SCADA solution developed in partnership by RWE npower (UK), npower and Thales Group, Thales UK. Based on a real-time application platform, APMS is a monitoring and control system for any large indust ...

(APMS) – a

SCADA Supervisory control and data acquisition (SCADA) is a control system architecture comprising computers, networked data communications and graphical user interfaces for high-level supervision of machines and processes. It also covers sensors and ...

solution developed in partnership by

RWE npower Npower Limited is a British supplier of gas and electricity to businesses. It has been a subsidiary of E.ON UK since January 2019. The company was formerly known as Innogy plc and was listed on the London Stock Exchange and was a constituent ...

(a descendant company of CEGB) and

Thales UK Thales Group () is a French multinational company that designs, develops and manufactures electrical systems as well as devices and equipment for the aerospace, defence, transportation and security sectors. The company is headquartered in Paris' ...

. 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 Uniper SE �juːnipɚis an energy company based in Düsseldorf, Germany. The name of the company is a portmanteau of "unique" and "performance" given by long-term employee Gregor Recke. Uniper was formed by the separation of E.ON's fossil fuel ...

), 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.http://esolangs.org/wiki/CUTLASS CUTLASS on Esolangs.org It is used at three UK power stations:

Ratcliffe-on-Soar Ratcliffe-on-Soar is a village and civil parish in Nottinghamshire on the River Soar. It is part of the Rushcliffe district, and is the site of Ratcliffe-on-Soar Power Station. Nearby places are Kingston on Soar, Kegworth and Trentlock. With a ...

, Cottam, and Fiddlers Ferry.

Policies and strategies

The CEGB was subject to examination from external bodies and formed policies and strategies to meet its responsibilities.

External

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. A report by the

Monopolies and Mergers Commission The Competition Commission was a non-departmental public body responsible for investigating mergers, markets and other enquiries related to regulated industries under UK competition law, competition law in the United Kingdom. It was a competiti ...

, ''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.

Internal

In 1964 the CEGB chose the Advanced Gas-cooled Reactor, developed by the

United Kingdom Atomic Energy Authority The United Kingdom Atomic Energy Authority is a UK government research organisation responsible for the development of fusion energy. It is an executive non-departmental public body of the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy ...

, for a programme of new station construction. The five stations were: Dungeness B, Hinkley Point B,

Hartlepool Hartlepool () is a seaside and port town in County Durham, England. It is the largest settlement and administrative centre of the Borough of Hartlepool. With an estimated population of 90,123, it is the second-largest settlement in County ...

Heysham Heysham ( ) is a coastal town in Lancashire, England, overlooking Morecambe Bay. It is a ferry port, with services to the Isle of Man and Ireland, and the site of two nuclear power stations. Demography Administratively, Heysham is part of th ...

and

Hunterston B Hunterston B nuclear power station is a shut down AGR nuclear power station in North Ayrshire, Scotland. Located about south of Largs and about north-west of West Kilbride on the Firth of Clyde coast. It is currently operated by EDF Energy, and ...

. 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. In 1979 the CEGB and the

National Coal Board The National Coal Board (NCB) was the statutory corporation created to run the nationalised coal mining industry in the United Kingdom. Set up under the Coal Industry Nationalisation Act 1946, it took over the United Kingdom's collieries on "v ...

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. In 1981 the CEGB applied for planning consent to build a 1,200 MW

pressurized water reactor A pressurized water reactor (PWR) is a type of light-water reactor, light-water nuclear reactor. PWRs constitute the large majority of the world's nuclear power plants (with notable exceptions being the UK, Japan and Canada). In a PWR, the primary ...

Sizewell Sizewell is an English fishing hamlet in the East Suffolk district of Suffolk, England. It belongs to the civil parish of Leiston and lies on the North Sea coast just north of the larger holiday village of Thorpeness, between the coastal town ...

. There was a lengthy public inquiry. 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.

Privatisation

The

electricity market In a broad sense, an electricity market is a system that facilitates the exchange of electricity-related goods and services. During more than a century of evolution of the electric power industry, the economics of the electricity markets had un ...

in the UK was built upon the break-up of the CEGB into four companies in the 1990s. Its generation (or upstream) activities were transferred to three generating companies, ' PowerGen', '

National Power National power is defined as the sum of all resources available to a nation in the pursuit of national objectives. Assessing the national power of political entities was already a matter of relevance during the classical antiquity, the middle ages ...

', and '

Nuclear Electric Nuclear Electric was a nuclear power generation company in the United Kingdom. It was formed in 1990 as part of the privatisation process of the UK Electricity Supply Industry. In 1996, it was amalgamated into a new company – British Energy, ...

' (later 'British Energy', eventually 'EDF Energy'); and its transmission (or downstream) activities to the '

National Grid Company National Grid plc is a British multinational electricity and gas utility company headquartered in London, England. Its principal activities are in the United Kingdom, where it owns and operates electricity and natural gas transmission networks ...

'. The shares in National Grid were distributed to the regional electricity companies prior to their own privatisation in 1990. PowerGen and National Power were privatised in 1991, with 60% stakes in each company sold to investors, the remaining 40% being held by the

UK government ga, Rialtas a Shoilse gd, Riaghaltas a Mhòrachd , image = HM Government logo.svg , image_size = 220px , image2 = Royal Coat of Arms of the United Kingdom (HM Government).svg , image_size2 = 180px , caption = Royal Arms , date_es ...

. The privatisation process was initially delayed as it was concluded that the 'earlier decided nuclear power plant assets in National Power' would not be included in the private National Power. A new company was formed,

, which would eventually own and operate the nuclear power assets, and the

nuclear power stations A nuclear power plant (NPP) is a thermal power station in which the heat source is a nuclear reactor. As is typical of thermal power stations, heat is used to generate steam that drives a steam turbine connected to a generator that produces e ...

were held in public ownership for a number of years. In 1995, the government sold its 40% stakes, and the assets of Nuclear Electric and

Scottish Nuclear Scottish Nuclear was formed as a precursor to the privatisation of the electricity supply industry in Scotland on 1 April 1990. A purpose-built headquarters was built in 1992 in the new town of East Kilbride. It consisted of the nuclear assets ...

were both combined and split. The combination process merged operations of UK's eight most advanced nuclear plants – seven Advanced Gas Cooled Reactor (AGR) and one Pressurised Water Reactor (PWR) – into a new private company founded in 1996, '

British Energy British Energy was the UK's largest electricity generation company by volume, before being taken over by Électricité de France (EDF) in 2009. British Energy operated eight former UK state-owned nuclear power stations and one coal-fired power ...

' (now '

EDF Energy EDF Energy is a British integrated energy company, wholly owned by the French state-owned EDF (Électricité de France), with operations spanning electricity generation and the sale of natural gas and electricity to homes and businesses through ...

'). The splitting process created a separate company in 1996 called '

Magnox Electric Magnox is a type of nuclear power/production reactor that was designed to run on natural uranium with graphite as the moderator and carbon dioxide gas as the heat exchange coolant. It belongs to the wider class of gas-cooled reactors. The na ...

' to hold the older

Magnox Magnox is a type of nuclear power/production reactor that was designed to run on natural uranium with graphite as the moderator and carbon dioxide gas as the heat exchange coolant. It belongs to the wider class of gas-cooled reactors. The n ...

reactors, later combined with

BNFL British Nuclear Fuels Limited (BNFL) was a nuclear energy and fuels company owned by the UK Government. It was a manufacturer of nuclear fuel (notably MOX), ran reactors, generated and sold electricity, reprocessed and managed spent fuel (mainly ...

. Although electricity privatisation began in 1990, the CEGB continued to exist until the ''Central Electricity Generating Board (Dissolution) Order 2001'', a

statutory instrument In many countries, a statutory instrument is a form of delegated legislation. United Kingdom Statutory instruments are the principal form of delegated or secondary legislation in the United Kingdom. National government Statutory instrument ...

, came into force on 9 November 2001. Powergen is now

E.ON UK E.ON UK is a British energy company and the largest supplier of energy and renewable electricity in the UK, following its acquisition of Npower. It is a subsidiary of E.ON of Germany and one of the Big Six energy suppliers. It was founded in ...

, owned by the German utility company E.ON, who then further split to form Uniper, who own the majority of the former E.On conventional power generation. National Power split into a UK business, 'Innogy', now '

', owned by the German utility company

RWE RWE AG is a German multinational energy company headquartered in Essen. It generates and trades electricity in Asia-Pacific, Europe and the United States. The company is Europe's most climate threatening Company, the world's number two in offsh ...

, and an international business, 'International Power', now

Engie Energy International Engie Energy International, formerly International Power, is a multinational electricity generation company headquartered in Newcastle upon Tyne, and a wholly owned subsidiary of the French company Engie (formerly GDF Suez). The company was form ...

and owned by the French company

Engie Engie SA is a French multinational utility company, headquartered in La Défense, Courbevoie, which operates in the fields of energy transition, electricity generation and distribution, natural gas, nuclear, renewable energy and petroleum. ...

Arms

Publications

*''Nuclear Know-How! – with an element of truth''. Published by the Central Electricity Generating Board Publicity Services – South East, Bankside House, Sumner Street, London SE1 9JU (n.d. but published c. 1980s–1990s). 20 pages. *Central Electricity Generating Board'', Annual Report and Accounts (''published annually). *Central Electricity Generating Board'', Statistical Yearbook'' (published annually). *H.R. Johnson et al., ''The Mechanism of Corrosion by Fuel Impurities'' (Central Electricity Generating Board; Marchwood Engineering Laboratories, 1963). *Central Electricity Research Laboratories, Symposium on chimney plume rise and dispersion, ''Atmospheric Environment'' (1967) 1, 351–440. *Central Electricity Generating Board, ''Modern Power Station Practice,'' 5 volumes (Oxford, Pergamon Press, 1971). *Central Electricity Generating Board, ''How Electricity Is Made and Transmitted'' (CEGB, London, 1972). * Central Electricity Generating Board, ''Submission to the Commission on Energy and the Environment'' (CEGB, London 1981). *Central Electricity Generating Board, ''Acid Rain'' (London, CEGB, 1984). * Central Electricity Generating Board, ''Achievements in technology, planning and research'' (CEGB, London, 1985). * Central Electricity Generating Board, ''Advances in Power Station Construction'' (Oxford, Pergamon Press, 1986). *Central Electricity Generating Board, ''European Year of the Environment: the CEGB Achievements'' (CEGB, London, 1986). * Central Electricity Generating Board, ''Drax Power Station, Proposed Flue Gas Desulphurisation Plant'' (London, CEGB, 1988).

References

External links

* {{Authority control 1957 establishments in the United Kingdom 2001 disestablishments in the United Kingdom Companies based in the London Borough of Camden Electric power companies of the United Kingdom Electric power generation in the United Kingdom Former nationalised industries of the United Kingdom Government agencies established in 1957 Government agencies disestablished in 2001 History of the London Borough of Camden National Grid (Great Britain)