ALMOST DOUBLED

Evening Post, Volume CXXIII, Issue 70, 24 March 1937, Page 10

ALMOST DOUBLED

ELECTRICITY OUTPUT IN BRITAIN

PROGRESS SINCE 1929

(British Official Wireless.)

(Received March 24, 11.30 a.m.)

RUGBY, March. 23.

■' The ninth annual report of the Central Electricity Board reveals that tha cost of the national grid to date, including extensions and reinforcements, is about £30,000,000, while 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 publicsupply 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 over 20,000,000,000 units.

Since 1929 the output of electricity in Britain has increased by over _95 per cent., whereas over the same period the expansion of world production has 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 areas in which general trading was in force was generated for or on behalf of the board. At the end of 1936 the grid system comprised approximately 4125 miles of transmission lines, 2898 miles of which operated at 132,000 volts and the remainder at 66,000 and lower voltages, and 289 switching and transforming stations -with an aggregate transforming capacity of 9,474,800 kva. The number of selected stations at the end of the year was 137, in which a total capacity of 7,206,045 kilowatts of generating plant was installed.