About Electricity North West Limited (ENW)

Working throughout North West England, Electricity North West Limited (ENW) owns, and through United Utilities, operates and maintains the electricity distribution network. This incorporates 58,000km of cables, 96 bulk supply substations, 363 primary substations and 33,000 transforming points, delivering over 24 terawatt hours of electricity annually to some 2.3 million domestic and industrial customers.

Network Control

The flow of power through the network is monitored, co-ordinated and controlled at the network control centre. The control engineers monitor the network through remote automatic equipment and can remotely control switches to divert the flow of power as required. The power network is very reliable, however if customers do experience problems with their supply, then either through our network alarms or through customers phoning up, the control centre will be alerted. When a customer phones, their details are entered into ENW's fault management system together with the network alarm information that allows the control engineers to identify where the network fault may be. This then allows the appropriate team to be dispatched to the problem area with the minimum delay.

Supply Restoration

The restoration team will travel to the identified location of the fault. Once on site, the team will carry out a final accurate fault location and restore power supplies to the affected customers. The restoration team's role is to restore power supplies to as many customers as possible in as short as time as possible whilst ensuring the highest levels of safety for the public and themselves.

Asset Planning and Programme Management

To run an efficient power network it is important that the whole network is maintained in a good state of repair. Definition of the standards and policies to deliver the required network outputs to meet the regulatory contract and business objectives are a key responsibility of ENW, together with the determination of which assets are to be worked on (ie refurbished, repaired or replaced). These policies, standards and assets form the basis of the capital and revenue work programmes.

Work Planning

The condition of the network is regularly checked through an extensive inspection regime which identifies potential problem areas. Integrated capital and revenue work plans are designed based on ENW's policies and standards, together with considerations of co-ordination and safety and overall efficiency.

Maintenance and Construction

Maintenance and construction work plans are implemented through UU's engineers, field teams and contractors. A whole range of different skills are required from network switching and permitting, overhead line work, underground cable skills, substation fitting and maintenance, control and automation installation and maintenance, civil repairs to substation buildings, and excavation and reinstatement following underground work. The maintenance and construction teams also carry out the permanent repairs once supplies have been restored following a network fault.

ENW Distribution Network Map