National Grid has unveiled the biggest cash deal in its history, pledging an extra £70bn over the next five years to reconnect power systems in Britain and the north-east of the United States.
The FTSE 100 conglomerate, which has spent the past two years rebranding itself as a gaming networks business, said the new commitment would accelerate its march towards a net-zero electricity system on both sides of the Atlantic. The announcement, made alongside its full-year results, builds on a record £11.6bn of capital expenditure in the previous year and shows that the group sees no compromise on the structural need for investment in the grid.
In the headline figure, a further £31bn will be invested in the UK's electricity transmission, increasing capacity for offshore wind, solar and nuclear over the next decade. The company has described spending as the basis for an “inefficient electricity network” in the 2030s, and the bill will, in part, be written under Ofgem's new RIIO-T3 framework, which has officially opened the way for more spending.
Across the Atlantic, £17bn is earmarked for New York and a further £12bn for New England, with around 60 per cent of the US share flowing directly to National Grid networks. The group expects a 10 percent increase in profit on its asset base in the 2030/31 financial year following this initiative.
Zoe Yujnovich, who took over as chief executive earlier this year, said the company “is embarking on the largest investment program in our history … to modernize and expand electricity networks across the UK and US Northeast, networks that support economic growth, strengthen energy security and enable the transition to a clean, flexible energy system.” He added that the group was “creating the workforce with the skills needed to deliver this investment quickly, creating thousands of jobs across our markets” – a message that is likely to play well in Westminster and Whitehall, where ministers have been pressing infrastructure workers to show job allocations for the green transition.
Growth ambitions have come against a soft revenue base. Net profit fell 4 per cent to £17.6bn from £18.3bn a year earlier, the company's decline caused by storm-related costs and the curtailment of its renewables arm and its US liquefied natural gas business. Pre-tax profit, however, jumped to £4.2bn from £3.6bn, while earnings per share rose eight per cent to 78p.
Shareholders were rewarded with a final dividend of 32.1p, taking the full-year payout to 48.9p, an increase of 3.8 per cent adjusted for UK inflation. The market responded warmly, with shares up 1.5 per cent in early trade to 1,297p, leaving the stock up 11.9 per cent since January and well outperforming the broader FTSE 100.
Looking ahead, National Grid expects UK transmission revenue to increase by around £850m next year, with RIIO-T3 doing much of the heavy lifting. In New England, top-line growth of around $450m is forecast, driven by rate resets, albeit partially offset by extended construction costs. New York is expected to follow suit.
For SMEs that rely on stable, predictable power supply, from manufacturers grappling with energy-intensive processes to data-hungry technology firms, the scale of the commitment is critical. A super-strong, modern transmission network supports the kind of long-term industrial planning that has been sorely lacking since the 2022 electricity shock, and puts the hard numbers behind the government's grid connection reforms.
Yujnovich struck a customer-friendly tone in his closing remarks. “By… transforming our capabilities we will be able to meet rapidly growing demand and create a more efficient energy system, supporting long-term affordability and reliability for customers,” he said.
For investors, the calculation is straightforward: regulated, inflation-linked income married to a ten-year capex story. In the wider economy, the award is a grid that ends up being equal to a century that should work.
