How Does The UK Electricity Industry Work?

One of the things that people struggle to understand about the UK energy industry is exactly who’s doing what and what role they play in getting electricity to your home or business. We wanted to give you a very short and easy to understand breakdown of who does what.National Grid owns and looks after the different grids that connect homes and businesses to the energy that they need. In the UK they run systems that deliver electricity to millions of people and businesses.There are four main elements that make the electricity industry work safely and efficiently:

Generators produce electricity from coal, gas, oil, nuclear power plants and wind farms. Electricity can’t be stored very easily so it is generated as  it is needed.

Suppliers (like Yu Energy) supply and sell electricity to homes and businesses. They use the distribution network to pass the electricity to homes and businesses.

The transmission network, owned by the National Grid, keeps the flow of electricity that has been generated through to the regional distribution networks.

Distributors own and operate the distribution network of towers and cables that bring electricity from our national transmission network to homes and businesses. They don’t sell electricity.

This gives you a very basic understanding about how the different companies work together to ensure you have a constant and reliable electricity supply powering homes and businesses across the UK.