In 1925 Lord Weir chaired a committee that proposed the creation of the Central Electricity Board to link the UK’s most efficient power stations with consumers via a ‘national gridiron’.
At that time, the industry consisted of more than 600 electricity supply companies and local authority undertakings, and different areas operated at different voltages and frequencies (including DC in some places).
[1] The CEB established laboratories at Croydon and Waddon to undertake research on high voltage transmission problems.
[2] The CEB co-existed with the Electricity Commissioners, an industry regulator responsible to the Ministry of Transport.
[2] Earley was the only power station owned by the CEB; it was operated by Edmundsons Electricity Corporation until nationalisation in 1948.
[2] Earley was also the site of a pioneering main-service gas turbine, this was a 56 MW machine driven by four Rolls-Royce Avon jet engines and was commissioned in 1965.