Company Profile: National Grid
We Mean Business coalition
UK-headquartered National Grid is one of the world’s largest investor-owned energy companies, delivering electricity and gas across the UK and Northeastern United States. The company has a market cap of $35 billion and achieved a revenue of $5.4 billion in 2018.
Commitments
- National Grid is committed to a 45% reduction in greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions by 2020, a 70% reduction in GHG emissions by 2030 and an 80% reduction in GHG emissions by 2050, compared to 1990 levels.
- By 2020 National Grid is committed to:
- Increase the energy efficiency of its UK property portfolio by 10%
- Reduce the capital carbon of its major UK construction projects by 50%
- Increase the energy efficiency of selected U.S. property sites by 20%
- Reusing or recycling all recovered assets and sending zero office waste to landfill at selected sites
- National Grid is committed to setting a science-based target with the Science Based Targets initiative.
- National Grid is committed to setting an internal carbon price on major capital construction projects and to reporting climate change information, as part of the We Mean Business coalition Take Action campaign.
Emission reduction
- National Grid has already exceeded its GHG emissions reduction target of 45% by 2020, with a 68% reduction in GHG emissions against 1990 baseline.
- In the 2017/18 financial year, National Grid’s projected carbon intensity for construction projects was £145 tCO2/ £m which represented 75% their total Scope 3 Intensity Target, to reduce the tCO2/ £m spent in capital delivery construction projects by 10% year on year.
Renewable electricity
- National Grid’s consumption of purchased or acquired electricity in 2017/18, was 199,025 MWh from renewable sources, or 31% of total electricity used.
- In 2017/18, National Grid’s UK generation from zero carbon sources (onshore and offshore wind, hydro-electric, biomass and embedded PV and wind) displaced. around 73.46 TWh of fossil fuel generation, a reduction of 28 million tonnes CO2e.
- National Grid entered in to a $100m investment with Sunrun in 2017, the largest independent rooftop solar company in the US. The joint venture will sell solar power systems to homes and businesses.
Electric vehicles (EV)
- National Grid has installed 170 EV charging ports at the company’s US office locations for employee use.
- Through their new employee incentive program over 350 employees have purchased or leased a plug-in electric vehicle since April of 2018.
- National Grid has filed the largest EV charging infrastructure rate-case request in Northeast history: National Grid is requesting up to $166.5 million to implement Phase II of its Electric Vehicle Market Development Program in Massachusetts. In September of 2018, the Massachusetts Department of Public Utilities approved Phase I of National Grid’s EV Program—which provides over $20 million for, among other things, customer rebates for the purchase of EV charging station equipment, construction and upgrades for charging station installation, marketing, and R&D. Phase II would significantly expand the scope of Phase I, and would seek to install up to 17,400 Level 2 and 300 DCFC (direct current fast charge) charging ports at over 10,000 sites in National Grid’s service territory.
Cost savings through decarbonization
- National Grid’s Project GRAID is a remotely controlled robot able to reach and supply information from within high-pressure gas pipelines to analyse the condition of critical assets. It will save around 1,109 tCO2e per year once delivered, from avoiding replacing assets and 1,036 tCO2e per year from avoided excavations, while generating cost savings of circa £58m over 20 years.
- National Grid has introduced a carbon weighting in tender assessments. The weighting has already provided savings such as 23% carbon and £3 million cost, for a new substation in Wimbledon, London, compared to the original design, across the asset’s lifespan.
- Through analysis of tenders, National Grid have identified that the relationship between cost and carbon is 1:2, meaning a 10% reduction in carbon equates to a 5% cost reduction.
Impact areas
- National Grid have set a target of engaging 80% of their suppliers to respond to CDP’s supply chain programme by 2020. In 2019 National Grid have achieved a global response rate of 92% surpassing its 2020 target.
- In 2017-18 National Grid achieved 60% landfill diversion from its offices: “We collected almost 3,400 pieces of used IT equipment, with 10% reused and 90% broken down and recycled. None of this equipment was sent to landfill.”
- National Grid are building sub-sea electricity interconnectors to join the UK to renewable energy on the continent – such as Norway’s hydropower.
- National Grid are developing infrastructure such as solar generation schemes and offshore wind connections, to enable affordable decarbonisation of energy across the Northeastern US
- National Grid are creating new ways to balance the electricity system in the UK during a time of rapid change in the sources of generation – from coal to wind and solar.
Unique innovations
- In 2017, National Grid won the BiTC Environmental Leadership award for their work integrating carbon as a weighted section within their competitive tender process.
- National Grid use an internal price of carbon – £45 per tonne of carbon in 2017/18 – in some decision-making processes across UK regulated business operations
- National Grid has developed a low-carbon alternative to conventionally reinforced concrete impact protection (polyethylene) slabs; which are used in shallow ditch-crossing situations, which delivers a 44% carbon saving.
- National Grid helped to make possible the first offshore wind farm to be built in the US, by constructing the undersea cable that connects the project to the grid.
- Natural Capital: Through active management and investment in the natural environment, National Grid have an opportunity to enable a more resilient network of energy assets that also deliver wider and shared benefits from ecosystem service provision. This innovative method of land management called ‘The Natural Grid’ also provides opportunities for the business to share their approach and foster collaboration that can bring wider benefits at greater scale. Eg. planting 0.5 hectares of trees and creating new meadow areas at their Elstree Substation.
Policy advocacy
- In the US National Grid have been proactively engaging policymakers and stakeholders and advocating for a strong utility role in transportation electrification at the local and national level.
- National Grid’s CEO John Pettigrew co-chairs the Edison Electric Institute’s CEO Taskforce, and the U.S. Executive Director Dean Seavers co-chairs the Alliance to Save Energy’s “50 by 50” commission. National Grid also hold a board seat on the Alliance for Transportation Electrification.
- National Grid disagrees with the EPA’s April 2018 decision that its GHG emissions standards for 2022-25 cars and trucks are not appropriate, and must be revised to be less stringent.
- In April 2016 National Grid endorsed C2ES’s statement calling for the US ratification of the Paris Agreement.
- On March 27th 2017 National Grid’s U.S. President Dean Seavers, met with Dave Banks, Special Assistant to the President for International Energy and Environment, as part of a larger delegation of industry stakeholders, who urged Secretary of State Rex Tillerson to ensure that the U.S. remains in the Paris Agreement.
Leadership
- In 2018 National Grid backed the UK Government’s 2018 bid to reignite the carbon capture industry with a call to fast-track funding for new projects
- In 2019 National Grid:
- Stated there was ‘immediate action’ required to ready the UK’s energy system for a net zero target
- Predicted a fleet of 35m electric vehicles could help the UK reach its net-zero carbon target by forming large battery hubs to store renewable energy
- In downstate New York territories, National Grid filed one of the most progressive rate cases in the United States under ‘Future of Heat’ to pilot new programs and technologies to stimulate new clean energy alternatives that will decarbonize the gas network. Some of those innovations include a ‘green gas tariff,’ power-to-gas demonstration project, hydrogen blending study and a program to facilitate interconnection of renewable natural gas projects.
National Grid Partners (NGP) is the venture investment and innovation arm of National Grid plc. NGP makes and manages strategically and financially attractive investments and leads company-wide disruptive innovation efforts. The organization focuses on innovation, incubation, corporate venture capital, and business development, providing a multi-functional approach to change the status quo. NGP is headquartered in Silicon Valley with offices in Los Gatos and San Francisco, and is also located in Boston, London, and New York.