The Central Electricity Generating Board (CEGB) was the cornerstone of the British electricity industry for almost 50 years, from its nationalisation in 1947 to privatisation in the 1990s. Some people feel that it represented the best of Government planning, others feel that it had become a monolith that exemplified the worst aspects of central planning, and was ripe for reform. It was run by engineers who were dedicated to the public interest. It employed the most advanced techniques of risk management and economic analysis .

The CEGB was created from the Central Electricity Authority (formerly the British Electricity Authority) in 1957. At the centre of the infrastructure was the central control room of the National Grid. The engineers who worked there had information about the running costs and availability of every power producing plant in England and Wales. Here they would constantly anticipate demand, monitor and instruct power station managers to produce electricity, or stop producing electricity, by reference to what was known as the "merit order". The objective was to ensure that output was always achieved at the lowest possible cost.

The CEGB had an extensive R & D section with its three principal laboratories at Leatherhead (Central Electricity Research Laboratory, CERL), Marchwood Engineering Laboratory (MEL) and Berkeley Nuclear Laboratories (BNL). There were also five regional facilities.

Although electricity privatisation began in 1990, the CEGB continued to exist until The Central Electricity Generating Board (Dissolution) Order 2001, a Statutory Instrument, came into force on the 9th November 2001.

The electricity market in the UK was built upon the breakup of the CEGB into three generating companies and the National Grid Company. The three generating companies were Powergen, National Power and Nuclear Electric . The first two were privatised in the early 1990s and the latter was held in public ownership for several years before combining with Scottish Nuclear and privatised as British Energy. A proportion of the CEGB's nuclear fleet, its older Magnox reactors, remained in public ownership as Magnox Electric , and were later combined with BNFL.

References

1. 'The CEGB Story' by Rob Cochrane (with additional research by Maryanna Schaefer), CEGB (1990)
2. The Central Electricity Generating Board (Dissolution) Order 2001 full text.