USE OF ELECTRICITY IN BRITAIN

Press, Volume LXXIII, Issue 22050, 25 March 1937, Page 15

USE OF ELECTRICITY IN BRITAIN

OUTPUT INCREASED BY 95 PER CENT.

HIGHEST TOTAL IN HISTORY OF INDUSTRY

(BRITISH OFFICIAL WIRELESS.) RUGBY, March 23. The ninth annual report of the Central Electricity Board reveals that the cost of the national grid system to date, including extensions and reinforcements, is about £30,000,000. It is estimated that by the end of 1936 the total capital saving, arising from the reduction in the proportion of generating plant held in reserve by authorised undertakers, had amounted to £ 14,000,000. The increase of 2,650,000,000 units in the output of electricity from public supply stations in Britain in 1936 was the highest recorded in the history of the industry and brought the total production by authorised undertakers in the year to more than 20,000,000,000 units. Since 1929 the output of electricity in Britain had increased by over 95 per cent., whereas over the same period the expansion of world production had not exceeded 35 per cent.

The progress of the concentration of public supplies of electricity upon the grid system can be judged, says the report, from the fact that during the year 95 per cent, of the electricity so supplied in the areas in which general trading was in force was generated for or on behalf of the board.