National Grid selects preferred partners for £2.8bn of electricity network upgrade work

Utility company National Grid has chosen its preferred partners for contracts worth up to £2.8bn to upgrade and develop the electricity transmission network across England and Wales.

The five-year contracts, which may be extended for a further five years, are among the largest ever awarded by National Grid. They include work on high voltage overhead lines and underground electricity cables, along with contracts for substation development and construction. The chosen partners are:

Overhead line and cable alliances:

• East Alliance: Balfour Beatty Group
• West Alliance: Amec, Babcock and Mott MacDonald

Substation alliances:

• Alliance 1 - South East: AREVA, Skanska and Mott MacDonald
• Alliance 2 - South Wales and West: Jacobs, Morrison Utility Services and Mitsubishi Electric
• Alliance 3 - Central: ABB, Morgan Est and Atkins
• Alliance 4 - North: Siemens, J Murphy & Sons and PB Power

The alliances are designed to support National Grid's investment programme in the transmission network and contribute to the wider issue of security of supply.

The works are required to connect new infrastructure such as wind farms and other new electricity generating plants. The contracts will also cover enhancement and replacement of existing assets.

The contracts will be undertaken on a collaborative basis involving the whole supply chain and will take into consideration the total life of the assets to ensure safe and sustainable delivery with a strong emphasis on health and safety.

National Grid's director of UK Construction, Rowan Sharples, said: "Following the success of our gas alliances, we have adopted a collaborative approach for electricity transmission. Providing long-term visibility of workload makes us a more attractive client and is essential for resourcing in a very buoyant world market.

"We believe working as one team will make the best use of competencies and the sharing of risk and reward improves both ownership and innovation."