Memorandum submitted by the National Grid
INTRODUCTION
1. National Grid owns and operates the high
voltage electricity transmission system in England and Wales and,
as Great Britain System Operator (GBSO), we operate the Scottish
high voltage transmission system. National Grid also owns and
operates the gas transmission system throughout Great Britain
and through our low pressure gas distribution business we distribute
gas in the heart of England to approximately eleven million offices,
schools and homes. In addition National Grid owns and operates
significant electricity and gas assets in the US, operating in
the states of New England and New York.
2. In the UK, our primary duties under the
Electricity and Gas Acts are to develop and maintain efficient
networks and also facilitate competition in the generation and
supply of electricity and the supply of gas. Our activities include
the residual balancing in close to real time of the electricity
and gas markets.
3. Through our subsidiaries, National Grid
also own and maintain around 18 million domestic and commercial
meters, the electricity Interconnector between England and France,
and a Liquid Natural Gas importation terminal at the Isle of Grain.
4. National Grid is committed to playing
its part in addressing climate change, alongside others. In order
to reach the Government targets of 80% emissions reduction by
2050, and 15% renewable energy sources by 2020 we will need Government,
industry and consumer collaboration to determine a route-map or
masterplan for meeting targets. A joined-up approach is essential
to get the right legislative and regulatory frameworks in place
and ensure necessary infrastructure investment is available in
a timely manner for the connection of new renewable sources of
electricity generation, and development of technologies such as
biogas production, and linking smart meters into smart grids.
5. It is important to stress that the low
carbon economy cannot be achieved if we do not get the right skills,
in the right places, at the right time and in the right quantities
to enable business to take advantage of the growing markets in
this area. Engineering expertise is critical to maintain security
of supply through the operation of the electricity and gas systems.
6. Consequently, looking ahead to 2020 and
beyond there is both a challenge and an opportunity in ensuring
we can recruit and retain staff with the skills and expertise
to manage our future networks. Given the age profile of our workforce,
and given the scale of the challenge we face, National Grid is
going to need to retrain or recruit approximately 1,000 new engineers
within the next 12 years to support its UK transmission business.
These people will be vital to run the gas and electricity networks
and therefore to deliver a low carbon energy future.
LOW CARBON
ENERGY AND
EMPLOYMENT
Smart grid trials
7. In order to achieve our renewable energy
ambitions and to maintain historical levels of security of supply
we will need a diverse mix of generation, investment in large
scale transmission networks to facilitate new generation as well
as investment in smart grids. In our US business we plan to run
a number of smart grid pilots—in Massachusetts and New York.
8. The pilot in Massachusetts will cover
1% of our customer base and include a wide variety of customers
from urban, suburban and rural settings with variable electricity
usage. The pilot will test the addition of distributed generation
and will build in options for adding renewables and plug-in hybrid
vehicles (PHEV) to the system. More than 100 National Grid employees,
contractors, vendors will be involved in the pilot.
9. In New York we have recently applied
to build and operate two 40,000 customer smart grid demonstration
projects in the Syracuse area and the Capital District. Under
the programmes, all customers will receive a smart meter, and
as an option, customers can have additional equipment installed
in their homes that include special programmable thermostats and
other devices that provide data and support energy management.
Participating customers will be asked how they prefer to receive
their energy information—via text message, from the Internet,
or on a PDA—and arrangements will be made for them to view
and monitor energy consumption on a real-time basis. Additionally,
customers will have the option to receive a new rate plan that
allows them to save money during periods when electricity use
is at its highest across the region.
10. We estimate that the two New York projects
could create 200 jobs. Some will be directly related to the pilot's
implementation and others will be indirectly related. All can
be considered "green jobs." We will share findings from
our US experience of smart grid trials with UK policy makers.
Carbon Capture and Storage
11. When looking at individual low carbon
technologies, it is apparent that their application can have a
wide impact on the economy—both through direct employment
and throughout various supply chains and their associated multiplier
effects.
12. National Grid is currently looking at
Carbon Capture and Storage as we feel that it represents an opportunity
to significantly reduce CO2 emissions from fossil fuelled power
stations, and could be the largest contributor to meeting global
emission reduction targets. As experts in managing networks with
a strong record of delivering large scale investment in energy
infrastructure we hope that there may be a role for National Grid
in the future deployment of CCS in the UK.
13. As outlined recently by Government,
there is the potential to create CCS clusters in the Humber, Firth
of Forth, Teeside and the Thames Estuary. Creating a cluster in
the Humber region (Yorkshire) looks to be the most significant,
in terms of initial benefits to Britain, as 40% of UK power stations
would be within reach of a CCS network.
14. Over the construction period of a Humber
CCS cluster, the RDA "Yorkshire Forward" estimate that
55,000 new jobs in the region could be created with the cluster
network underpinning several thousand more key jobs in the power
generation, heavy manufacturing and coal industries in the region.
NATIONAL GRID'S
SKILLS BASE
15. The demand for engineering professionals
is set to rise in the UK in the next 10 years due to advances
in technology and changes in industry and consumer demands. National
Grid face a challenge to attract, recruit and retain engineering
talent at the NVQ level and beyond, in order to ensure continuity
of our business operations, and to facilitate future innovation
in the engineering sector.
16. The skills of National Grid employees
are at the heart of our success in reaching world class safety
and operating and financial performance. Many of our organisation's
roles are complex, requiring a wide range and depth of skills—for
example we require commercial expertise in order to forecast supply
and demand of gas and electricity; engineering apprentices to
build and maintain overhead powerlines and gas pipelines; finance
graduates to manage accounts and a range of other skills and expertise
in power systems, IT, Safety, and Supply Chain Management.
17. We take the training and development
of our staff seriously, upgrading their skill sets, developing
competencies and working to ensure that we meet future engineering
skills shortages through training. Various Apprenticeships are
offered by National Grid ranging from 24-36 months, all of which
contain substantial elements of on the job training. At any one
time National Grid has up to 200 Apprentices training and studying
to gain qualifications. National Grid was awarded Beacon status
for its apprenticeships in 2009 by the LSIS, placing us in the
top 5% of learning providers. On average it costs National Grid
up to £75k to train an apprentice.
18. Through a partnership approach with
EU Skills and Aston University, National Grid has developed an
Electrical Technology Foundation Degree. The qualification consists
of a number of modules, some of which are centred on developing
core skills to be utilised across the engineering sector, other
modules are specific to National Grid's electrical transmission
business. The Foundation Degree is designed to combine academic
study with work place learning to equip students with relevant
and practical knowledge and skills.
19. To date the Electrical Technology Foundation
Degree has been very successful with over 20 students already
working with us and taking up accredited qualifications at Aston,
and we plan to roll Foundation Degrees out to 35 students in 2010.
In addition to Level 5 recruitment we will be recruiting 25 graduates
onto our UK graduate programme during 2010 and will continue to
sponsor more than 10 graduates on a full engineering scholarship
throughout their university course and summer placements working
with the IET Power Academy.
National Grid research—encouraging future
engineers
20. We believe that up to 33% of our current
UK transmission engineers will retire between now and 2020. National
Grid will be looking to create over 1000 new engineering roles
to resource our UK gas & electricity transmission business,
keeping the lights on and the gas flowing, but we recognise that
the work we are currently doing to "grow our own" talent
and invest in training will not be sufficient to meet our own
future engineering needs. To assist our future workforce planning
we have conducted a piece of research to address why the engineering
talent pool was shrinking and how we could encourage more young
people to take up STEM subjects and think about careers in engineering.
21. The early qualitative research focussed
on asking teachers, parents, school children, and our own engineers
about their perceptions of engineering. Initial findings indicated
that people found it hard to define the role of an engineer. Both
parents and teachers felt that the term "engineer" was
too vague and they associated a career in engineering with a menial
role—fixing something, physically demanding and low paid.
In addition, we found that a number of children couldn't visualise
what an engineer does every day—or even name a recent engineering
achievement (even those studying STEM).
22. We also found that there was an element
of snobbery and prejudice surrounding take up of a career in engineering.
A number of parents felt that engineering was a male orientated
career, and was about "fixing" problems rather than
"creating" and design. STEM academic parents and Black
and Minority Ethnic parents felt that taking up a career in engineering
may be settling for a lesser option. A positive finding from the
research was that people who knew engineers are best placed to
see the benefits of the career, such as good salaries, and the
ability to work around the world. Interestingly a significant
proportion of our own National Grid engineering workforce that
were surveyed had a family connection to engineering—this
had influenced their decision to take up an engineering career.
23. In terms of tackling the issues raised
we appreciate that as an engineering organisation, we have a key
role to play in making the link between engineering, creativity
and technology. In order to achieve this we envisage that we will
focus on making early interventions with children of school age
and organising opportunities for young people to have greater
exposure to engineers, perhaps through more open days, talks in
schools and after school clubs; and there is a need to engage
with teachers and parents to demonstrate the practical and aspirational
side of engineering.
24. After completing the quantitative research
we held a series of roundtable workshops with the Royal Academy
of Engineering (RAE) to share our research findings with, industry
groups, representatives from schools and universities and other
organisations who seek to promote engineering and STEM. Our participation
in the debate was welcomed by industry groups. Having shared the
data from our research we are currently in the process of working
out the best interventions to make with young people, teachers
and parents in order to make engineering a profession of choice.
25. In addressing the public policy agenda
we are clear that there is a significant role for industry to
play in communicating more clearly the link between STEM subjects
and the careers available in engineering, science and technology.
However we also feel that although Government has made major strides
in tackling skills issues, bringing in the Level 2 Skills Pledge;
rolling out Foundation Degrees at Level 5 and in the last six
months, nationwide roll out of the new Engineering Diploma; much
more needs to be done to focus and hone skills and training investment
specifically to STEM related subjects.
26. The general consensus from our roundtable
workshops with the RAE and industry groups was that science, engineering
and technology skills must be made an educational priority and
funding needs to be underpinned by foresight of the needs of the
UK as a whole with a 20-30 year outlook.
27. National Grid will continue to work
with RAE to address how UK industry can deliver more STEM students
and how to change the current perception of engineering. We hope
to share some of our thoughts and solutions with policy makers
and industry during the summer (2009).
28. As UK plc we must act now to invest
in the future UK engineering talent base and encourage more young
people to take up STEM subjects, in order to ensure that we have
the future skills we need to innovate, design and manage a low
carbon energy system.
3 June 2009
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