NORTH-EAST SCOTLAND SUB-CENTRE: CHAIRMAN'S ADDRESS

By W. H. HOWARD, Associate Member.*

"THE DEVELOPMENT OF PUBLIC ELECTRICITY DISTRIBUTION IN GREAT BRITAIN"

(ABSTRACT of Address delivered at DUNDEE, 10th October, 1946.)

The public electricity services of this country now appearfrequently in the news, and far-reaching changes may be im-minent. In this Address I shall deal more particularly with thedistribution side of the industry, the growth and present positionof which I shall outline.

Since means were developed, nearly seventy years ago, ofusing electricity as a powerful, safe and convenient illuminant,the industry has grown from strength to strength and has nowreached an outstanding position among the nation's vitalservices. During the very early years there was a great deal offinancial uncertainty and hesitation, but since about 1890progress has been steady and continuous in spite of keen com-petition from other forms of energy. Most of you will rememberthe time when electricity in the home was regarded as the pre-rogative of the wealthy, and industrialists were still uncertainwhether to install private steam or oil-engine plants in preferenceto taking a public supply. The circumstances of the last tenyears seem, partly as a result of the recent war, to have sweptaway the last traces of reluctance to make full use of the publicservice.

Not only has electricity in the home ceased to be regarded asa luxury, but it is now demanded also as a necessity by largenumbers of tenants of the humblest property, who are preparedto install wiring and fittings at the present high costs, in some caseseven where houses have been condemned as unfit to live in.

In addition to taking the place of other forms of energy, formany purposes electricity has created for itself new and exclusiveapplications: it has found its way into almost every imaginableservice and process essential to the well-being and, indeed, thevery existence of the nation. The public supply engineer, if hepauses to think about it, cannot escape a feeling of appre-hension concerning the magnitude of his commitments.

The standard of reliability demanded of public supply in recentyears is exceedingly high. Storage, to provide for temporaryfailure of plant and for routine maintenance work, is, in the caseof electricity, both impracticable and uneconomic. Risks arisingfrom inability to store have compelled the supply engineer toresort to a great deal of interconnection: this appeared first onlocal systems; later a national scheme connected together allimportant power stations.

Control, on a national scale, of all important power stationsby the Central Electricity Board is now well established. Thispublic body came into existence as a result of the Electricity(Supply) Act, 1926. The comprehensive system of powerstation interconnection known as the Grid has made possibleconsiderable savings in station plant and enabled higher operatingefficiency to be attained.

Now that the benefits of station interconnection and centralizedcontrol of running have been exploited there does not, at thepresent time, appear to be any other way of substantially in-creasing the efficiency of the generating side of the industry,apart from improvements in station plant design and the use ofimproved materials of construction—methods which producesteady but small advances and take time.

• Dundee Corporation Electricity Department.

In distribution, no legislation has yet been attempted witheffect so far-reaching as that of the 1926 Act on generation,though the intention of the promoters of the 1919 Act was toorganize distribution on a joint-authority basis.

The problems of distribution differ widely from those ofgeneration. Generation is, more or less, a manufacturingprocess, mainly technical and fairly well suited to centralizedcontrol. Distribution is a retail delivery service, the successfulmanagement of which demands a wide knowledge, not only oftechnical matters, but also of local affairs and local requirements.A substantial measure of decentralization and local autonomyis obviously a prerequisite of the successful administration ofdistribution. I will not venture an opinion on the optimum sizefor a distribution unit: this may differ widely between one part ofthe country and another, and is dependent upon density ofpopulation and industry, as well as geographical and other cir-cumstances. Generally, however, it is neither advisable nornecessary for units to be larger than can be readily and intimatelycomprehended by their chief officers.

I think many of you will agree that the present arrangement ofthe distribution side of the industry, by which this country isdivided into several hundred more or less watertight compart-ments with wide disparities in size, is now in need of somerevision. Existing boundaries conflict, in some cases, with thebest technical and managerial requirements and cause tariffanomalies. A good deal of disorganization may result if localauthorities in whose areas company undertakings distributesupplies decide, as they are entitled to do, to exercise theiroptions to purchase and become distributors themselves.Responsibility for the present constitution of the industry restswith early legislation, which came into being at a time whenlocal administrative boundaries appeared to offer all the scopenecessary for the limited range of distribution then consideredpracticable. During the last quarter of a century rapid strideshave been made in transmission and distribution, and theindustry is now reaching an advanced stage of development.It is not surprising, therefore, that legislation in connection withdistribution, which is still substantially the same as it was in theearly days, is now receiving careful scrutiny.

The clauses in the early Acts giving local authorities purchasingrights over private undertakings operating in their administrativeareas were probably intended as safeguards of the public interest.Whether or not these have ever been found necessary to anyappreciable extent in practice I cannot say, but they do now seemto be redundant. A high sense of public duty and a progressiveoutlook are to-day almost universal among undertakings. Forevidence of efficiency we have only to recall the promptitude withwhich all demands created by the recent war were met, and toobserve that tariffs are still being maintained at almost pre-warlevels in spite of very large increases in the costs of all rawmaterials and plant. What other industry or public service canmake such a claim?

For obvious reasons, public electricity services can be operatedat maximum efficiency and economy on a monopoly basis only.Under the present system of ownership, partly private and partly

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HOWARD: NORTHEAST SCOTLAND SUB-CENTRE: CHAIRMAN'S ADDRESS 139

public, the interests of the consumer are protected by extensivelegislation which leaves very little scope for any possibility ofabuse of monopoly privileges. In addition, the industry isunder the surveillance of the Electricity Commissioners. Seriousinefficiency could not go unnoticed for long.

The error is sometimes made of assuming that, becauseelectricity services operate as monopolies, no competitionexists. It must not be overlooked that keen rivalry has existedfor a long time between public supply and private plants,particularly in industry. In the domestic field there has beencompetition from gas, coal and oil. Another factor to be con-sidered is the almost innate impulse of every engineer towardsthe pursuit of technical efficiency and lowness of costs as worth-while ends in themselves. Given the opportunity and means todo so he will watch carefully, and endeavour to surpass, theachievements of fellow engineers in other undertakings. Itwould be a considerable loss to the morale of the industry if thisfeature were to be submerged under any future scheme ofreorganization.

The first legislation in connection with public electricity supplywas the Electric Lighting Act, 1882, later known as the"Chamberlain Act." Swan's carbon-filament lamp had, in1880, demonstrated the advantages of electricity as an illuminantadaptable to all requirements. The resulting demand for house-to-house supply soon made an approach to Parliament necessaryin order to obtain rights to break open public streets for thepurpose of laying mains, following the practice of water and gasundertakings.

The 1882 Act laid foundations upon which all subsequentlegislation in connection with the industry has been built. Itgave the Board of Trade powers of supervision over the newindustry and authority to issue Licences and Provisional Ordersto local authorities, companies or persons for the purpose ofsupply in defined areas, subject to various stipulations and safe-guards. Licences were valid for seven years, but were renewablefor further periods: later they were found to be impracticableand were discontinued. Provisional Orders, subject to con-firmation by Parliament, ran for twenty-one years, renewable forsubsequent seven-year periods. Among other provisions of theAct were: powers of local authorities to raise loans; the acquisi-tion of land; the erection of works and the keeping of financialrecords.

Limitation of tenure by companies and persons to twenty-oneyears, after which local authorities were to have recurringoptions to take over plant and buildings at valuation, wasprobably the worst of a number of setbacks the young industryexperienced. Local authorities were not yet aware of theadvantages of becoming suppliers themselves, and private con-cerns regarded the terms of the Provisional Orders as unsatis-factory: a period of stagnation followed the Act. A cycle oftrade depression which occurred at that time may also have had aconsiderable adverse influence.

One notable exception was the Kensington Supply Company.The circumstances were unusual: the supply system covered abouta hundred houses on private land belonging to the Land SecuritiesCompany. Mains were run in existing subways, under a short-term licence, with little risk to the shareholders. Supply wascommenced in 1886, and satisfactory results were being shownwithin a year or two.

By 1888 a clamour had arisen for repeal of the offendingclause of the 1882 Act; the Government took action, passing afurther Act, which increased the period of tenure to forty-twoyears, local authority options to purchase recurring every sub-sequent ten years. Private undertakings began to appear.

The year 1890 saw municipal enterprise beginning to enter thefield in earnest. Although a late starter, it gathered momentum

so rapidly that private companies were unable to gain a footingin most of the large towns and were obliged to look to what hasremained, to the present day, their main field of activity—thesmall towns and rural areas. London, of course, provides anumber of notable exceptions to the general rule.

For many years most municipalities were preoccupied with theneeds of their own citizens and paid little attention to dwellers inthe surrounding countrysides, with the result that many privatecompanies stepped in and obtained rights to supply close to theurban areas, realizing, perhaps, that in the course of time suburbswould probably spread outwards towards the rural areas and soprovide them with valuable additions of load. In many instancestheir foresight has been justified. Unfortunately, the resultingtariff anomalies and other difficulties have become increasingsources of friction. Some municipalities are prevented fromsupplying electricity to their own housing developments.

In 1899 the Electric Lighting (Clauses) Act was passed. Thecontents of a schedule to the Act were subsequently incorporatedin all new Provisional Orders granted. Many points of detailare dealt with in this Act, including procedure for breaking openpublic streets, obligation to give supply, keeping of records, ratesof charge and approval of nature and system of supply by theBoard of Trade. A further Act, in 1909, adds a few more detailsto previous legislation and gives powers to acquire land com-pulsorily for the erection of generating stations.

Following a period of rapid development during the FirstWorld War, the Electricity Supply Act, 1919, was passed, settingup the Electricity Commission to supervise the industry. TheCommissioners were made responsible to the Minister of Trans-port, to whom the duties of the Board of Trade were nowtransferred, and who retained them until early in the recent war,when they were passed back to the Board of Trade for a shorttime before going to their present holder, the Minister of Fueland Power. This Act was the first serious attempt to combinepublic supply into larger units. It was the intention of thosewho produced the Bill to regionalize supply areas under a numberof joint authorities who were to be given compulsory powers totake over and interconnect groups of existing undertakings.Compulsory powers were deleted from the Bill during its passagethrough Parliament. The voluntary scheme which was sub-stituted had only limited success, as the small number of jointauthorities at the present time testifies.

Failure to gain the desired result gave rise to a second attemptseven years later. I refer to the 1926 Electricity Supply Act, asan outcome of which the Central Electricity Board was set up. Itwas realized, by this time, that the reorganization of generationwould be more desirable on a national than on a joint-authoritybasis. So the Grid was constructed and was practically completewithin seven years.

It will not be necessary to go into the reasons for the success ofthe Grid: the project arose out of sound technical and financialreasoning, which has been fully justified by the results obtained.It is unlikely that the present level of generation efficiency couldhave been attained by other means. As a war-time asset thevalue of the Grid was incalculable: in peace it will greatly assistin the development, on a large scale, of natural sources ofenergy such as Highland wate^power and tidal flow.

The electricity supply industry continues to grow in size andimportance, and as it does so the techniques of generation anddistribution become, not only more elaborate, but also moreremote from each other. New entrants to the industry arefinding increasing difficulty in becoming proficient in bothbranches and are obliged to specialize in one or the other. Iwonder whether, eventually, the two branches will becomeentirely separated. Whereas in the early days it was essentialfor each distribution network to have a power station of its

140 HOWARD: NORTH-EAST SCOTLAND SUB-CENTRE: CHAIRMAN'S ADDRESS

own, situated as near to the centre of gravity of the load asavailable land, coal and cooling-water facilities would permit,we have now reached a stage at which no such restriction onstation positions is necessary.

Rapid developments are to be expected in the production ofatomic energy during the next few years. Physicists tell us thatthe difficulties of protecting life against harmful radiations areso great as to render small plants for the production of the newform of energy much less economic than large ones. In thesecircumstances there would appear to be only two ways ofmaking the energy available to a multitude of small users: asheat, conveyed through pipes by means of water, steam or otheragent, in a manner similar to district heating; or in the form ofelectrical energy. The exceptional convenience and adaptabilityof electricity and the ease and efficiency with which it can beconverted to other forms of energy, coupled with the fact thatsupply networks are already in existence, make it almost certainthat the latter method would be used to the greatest extent.Electricity supply networks may therefore need reinforcing in thefuture to deal with loads hitherto not even dreamed of. Ournational generating resources may become concentrated in acomparatively small number of very large atomic-electric powerstations, and the already widening split between the productionand the distribution of energy may become complete.

From one point of view, at least, I believe this separationwould be beneficial. Distribution problems have received toolittle attention in the past: they have been overshadowed, to someextent, by the more vital ones of generation. As a result therehas been a good deal of needless expenditure due to the lack ofsufficiently well-worked-out policies for dealing with progressiveincreases of load.

Fortunately, non-standard frequencies were dealt with de-cisively several years ago to meet the needs of the Grid system.It is now regretted that non-standard voltages and systems ofsupply were not taken firmly in hand at the same time. Sincethen, further expenditure has been incurred, by both the industryand its consumers, on non-standard plant and appliances, withthe result that the standardization problem is still with us,larger than ever.

When one considers the vast amount of research carried outby manufacturers and others on the main components of dis-tribution systems, such as cables, switchgear and transformers,it may seem strange that distribution authorities have devotedso little attention to the study of network design as a whole.The insignificant amount of literature on the subject bears outmy assertion. Most supply engineers will be found to hold oneor other of two contradictory opinions on network design: thatthe problem is relatively simple and does not call for a high orderof technical skill; or that it is extraordinarily difficult, that thenumber of imponderable factors to be taken into account rendersa theoretical approach impossible, so that intelligent guessworkmust be used to a large extent. I do not subscribe to either ofthese opinions. In view of the large amount of capital involved—more than half of the capital expenditure of the industry issunk in distribution— I think that a more systematic approach tothe problem is overdue.

Superficially no great difficulties appear to exist. Energy isavailable in bulk at a central point and has to be distributed to a

large number of small consumers. By means of high-voltagefeeders it is first conveyed to a number of small substations fromwhich it is distributed to consumers' premises at reduced voltage.Maximum current ratings of cables, switchgear and trans-formers must not be exceeded, and voltage variation must beconfined within the statutory limits. A simple problem, youmay say.

But on looking more closely into the matter we encounterquestions requiring considerable ingenuity for their answer.What, for example, is the most economical primary distributionvoltage to adopt in a particular area? What is the most eco-nomical average size for static substations under existing loadconditions, and will the same size still be the best when the loadhas increased, say, four times? How far apart should sub-stations be at each stage of load development, and how arespacings to be adjusted in the future to keep pace with loadincreases? Is it better to have a few large substations spaced wellapart, in conjunction with large-section distributors, or to havesmall distributors and smaller, more numerous, substations?At what stage of development, if at all, is it worth while tosuperimpose a higher primary distribution voltage? What marginshould be allowed at the outset for predictable increase ofdemand on a new section of network, and in what way is ade-quate provision to be left for dealing with subsequent increases,perhaps ten- or twenty-fold, with the minimum reopening ofstreets at a later date? It should be mentioned that the cost ofexcavation and reinstatement of cable track in built-up areas,excluding cost of cable, is frequently in the region of £1 per yard.These are just a few examples of many matters requiring investi-gation in connection with network design. I would mentionalso that voltage-control and protective-gear policies haveprofound influences on network costs.

Unfortunately, it does not seem possible to devise a reasonablysimple set of standards for judging the success of distributionnetwork designs. The power station designer possesses readymeans of finding out whether his design has been successful ornot, by reference to such straightforward results as cost perkilowatt of plant installed, cost per kilowatt-hour generated andnumber of kilowatt-hours produced per pound of coal consumed,etc. In the past, the absence of similar standards applicable tonetwork design has doubtless been the cause of considerablewaste of capital.

I have tried to show that there is no means of keeping adequatecheck on the work of the network designer—he must be taken ontrust. He can save or waste considerable sums of money withoutthe fact being realized. Clearly the work calls for special skill,training and experience. I believe there is an adequate case infavour of a central research and training establishment wheresound lines of general policy could be worked out and wherespecialists could receive the necessary training to fit them for thisresponsible work. I lay special emphasis on the need for bettertechnical planning for the distribution side of the industry,because I believe it will be found to be one of the most promisingmeans of improving efficiency.

[The principal changes which have taken place in publicelectricity distribution practice since the early days were tracedout with the aid of lantern slides.]