Powering the future with National Grid

Our team deployed their route and site selection expertise with digital innovation to create a brand-new digital tool in ArcGIS that’s helping National Grid build the new, much-needed Lincolnshire transmission line with efficiency and transparency, enabling additional sources of low-carbon power for the UK.

Location

United Kingdom

Client

National Grid Electricity Transmission

National Grid Electricity Transmission provides power to millions of people across the United Kingdom. That also means the organisation has a key role to play in fulfilling the country’s promise to achieve net zero by 2050.

National Grid launched an ambitious strategic plan to support this goal: the Great Grid Upgrade. This plan aims to scale up the grid with a new transmission network while also updating existing networks.

One of those projects is in Lincolnshire, known as Grimsby to Walpole.

There is currently limited transmission network coverage in Lincolnshire aside from a legacy transmission network on the south side of the Humber and further south in the county, which dates back to the 1960s and 1990s. With the grid unsuited in this area for the amount of new energy planned to be connected from the North Sea and Scotland, as well as local connections, reinforcement via the Grimsby–Walpole project is essential to move renewable power efficiently and reliably.

With this urgent need to upgrade the network in Lincolnshire, the Grimsby to Walpole project proposes 140 kilometers of new overhead transmission lines and up to six new substations. Once completed, this work will modernize the area’s energy infrastructure and support the delivery of renewable energy to the whole of the UK.

WSP’s work on routing and siting, along with the development of the graduated swathe for Grimsby to Walpole, paved the way for how we now approach this stage of our long linear projects as a business. The collaborative effort across the team allowed us to produce the end product more efficiently than traditional, more isolated routing approaches but was still robust and based on expert judgement. Clear visual outputs from WSP allowed us to clearly articulate the project and decision making during the initial stage of public consultation

Client representative Co-Lead, National Grid

Client representative Co-Lead, National Grid

As the transmission line requires new pylons in a largely undeveloped landscape, it means transparency and engagement with local stakeholders, consisting of residents, landowners, planning authorities and environmental bodies in the area, is of the upmost importance. Delivering this new line successfully depends on adequately addressing their comments and concerns.

“The Great Grid Upgrade requires not only a fundamental upgrade of the current electricity system, but it also needs to be delivered at speed,” explains a co-lead at National Grid. “WSP’s approach was both robust in terms of technical needs but also far quicker than the traditional routing and siting approaches used by the business at the time.”

To deal with these technical and transparency challenges, National Grid commissioned WSP based on our previous routing and optioneering work. We were tasked to work with project teams of consents, environmental, and engineering experts to determine the best route for the Grimsby to Walpole transmission line because of our demonstrated expertise in combining digital spatial analysis with our extensive knowledge of infrastructure planning.

Our team leveraged their knowledge of ESRI ArcGIS and realized National Grid’s vision for a new visual tool for its projects could be met using a novel technique: a graduated swathe. We created the graduated swathe’s visualization through a comprehensive process informed by technical analysis and available data to determine an efficient route designed to minimize disruption. This gave National Grid the means to address this challenge in a timely manner, while supporting engagement with the local community through information-sharing and similar efforts.

New overhead transmission line for approximately

~140KM

The finished network is designed to carry around 6 GW, enough to power

~19M homes

Data points assessed for multi-criteria analysis to guide network routing

~125,000

Making data-driven decisions

The graduated swathe solution serves as a visual output that shows the likelihood of infrastructure placement within a corridor. It was built using ArcGIS by ESRI, a leading geospatial platform capable of analysing, mapping and presenting all kinds of data and perfectly suited for the task at hand.

This routing and multi-criteria analysis work also involved a level of internal and external collaboration.

“Our work here was deeply interdisciplinary. Our GIS team worked closely with subject matter experts (SMEs) from WSP’s Earth and Environment team, which covered disciplines across ecology, heritage, landscape and engineering along with the National Grid project team,” explains Ben Smith, Associate Digital Consultant – GIS, WSP. “We held regular workshops and data reviews where SMEs contributed constraint layers and expert insight that were integrated into the GIS workflows. This ensured that routing decisions were both technically sound and sensitive to environmental and social factors. The iterative nature of the process allowed us to refine outputs like the graduated swathe in response to expert feedback and SME input.”

The insights gained from our use of ArcGIS spatial analysis tools to bring these varying priorities into a single view played a pivotal part in the project, identifying feasible routes for the infrastructure. Data is collected and examined from numerous sources, accounting for environmental constraints, land use and ownership data, topography, hydrology infrastructure, utilities, socio-economic indicators, and similar areas. This comprehensive dataset enables the client to visualise constraints, assess impacts and consider possible routing options with precision.

When creating the graduated swathe, our team first drew from our knowledge at WSP and past experiences to evaluate feasible solutions. Ultimately, together we decided that National Grid faced a challenge complex enough to warrant a custom solution, as that would deliver the best value. The graduated swathe tool can handle the complexities of routing the Grimsby-Walpole corridor with its more specialized approach, while also fulfilling the project’s emphasis on transparency. The solution provides a deeper understanding of the routing and siting process and with these strategic insights, National Grid can ensure efficient and effective project execution.

The Grimsby to Walpole project exemplifies our commitment to embedding advanced location intelligence and digital solutions at the heart of our work. By making our process more open, efficient, and focused on a better future, we’re helping ensure everyone benefits from reliable, cleaner energy.

Cheryl Trent Global digital lead, Location intelligence

Cheryl Trent Global digital lead, Location intelligence

Saving time and enhancing visibility

National Grid can use the graduated swathe tool to achieve their goals of data-backed route identification while also positioning themselves for positive, effective stakeholder engagement. For example, the use of automated GIS workflows, which includes least cost path and corridor analysis, significantly reduced the manual work required from project personnel. It also saved time and resources by providing clear visualisations that improved stakeholder understanding.

“We developed the graduated swathe to support transparency and increase understanding of the process employed,” explains Ben Smith. “This tool has been instrumental in consultations, helping stakeholders understand how decisions are made and where impacts may occur. By making complex routing data accessible and understandable, the aim is to shift the conversation from opposition to informed dialogue as much as possible.”

The tool and online maps mean that National Grid can provide clearer information to the public and stakeholders. This leads to more effective communication in terms of interactive consultations where people can view detailed maps of the project and provide their feedback. The result is that the team is equipped with a better understanding of the project’s impact and the decision-making process.

A new addition to the toolbox

The refinement of previous graduated swathes, produced on other earlier projects as part of this work on the Grimsby to Walpole corridor, has been rolled out as good practice on all subsequent projects that will use this method. National Grid adopted it as a standard consultation tool on all of their linear infrastructure projects, due to its effectiveness at visualising routing likelihood and supporting stakeholder engagement

Beyond the Great Grid Upgrade, the graduated swathe tool was shortlisted for the ESRI Customer Awards in the Analytics Insights category and has attracted interest from GIS teams in other organisations, who have reached out for guidance on how to produce similar outputs. This highlights the broader industry impact of innovating on value-focused digital solutions and their potential to shape best practices in infrastructure planning.