IN Brief:
- National Grid Electricity Transmission has formed five-year innovation partnerships with 10 UK universities.
- The partnerships cover the RIIO-T3 period from 2026 to 2031.
- Research will focus on power electronics, digital transformation, network planning, and lower-emission technologies.
National Grid Electricity Transmission has formed five-year innovation partnerships with 10 UK universities to support the development of technologies and methods for the future transmission network.
The partnerships cover the RIIO-T3 price control period from 2026 to 2031 and bring academic research teams into NGET’s innovation portfolio. The universities involved are Bath, Birmingham, Cardiff, Edinburgh, Exeter, Liverpool, Manchester, Southampton, Strathclyde, and Warwick.
Research activity will focus on power electronics, digital transformation, network planning, and lower-emission technologies. All six universities that joined similar innovation partnerships during the RIIO-2 period are returning, with four more institutions added for the new programme.
NGET is preparing for a major increase in transmission investment during RIIO-T3. The company expects around £31bn of investment between 2026 and 2031, supporting the connection of 35GW of new generation and storage and 19GVA of demand. Innovation is therefore being tied directly to the delivery of a larger and more complex transmission system.
Transmission networks are entering a demanding technical phase. They must connect offshore wind, onshore renewables, battery storage, interconnectors, industrial load, data centres, and electrified transport while maintaining security, stability, and resilience. The network also has to operate with a changing generation mix as conventional synchronous plant declines and inverter-based resources become more prominent.
Power electronics research is central to that transition. Converter-based technologies are increasingly involved in HVDC links, offshore connections, battery systems, solar farms, and flexible network assets. Their behaviour affects voltage control, fault response, harmonics, stability, protection settings, and system restoration. Transmission operators need verified evidence before new approaches can be embedded into live operating procedures and asset policies.
Digital transformation is also becoming more closely tied to physical network delivery. Grid planning has to account for uncertain demand growth, weather-dependent generation, flexible assets, and changing market behaviour. Better data, modelling, asset monitoring, and operational visibility can improve decisions where tools are robust enough for engineering use. A model that cannot support procurement, maintenance, outage planning, or control-room decisions remains a research output rather than a network tool.
Transmission operators across Europe are already combining technical programmes with large financing packages, including Amprion’s €6.5bn green credit facility for high-voltage reinforcement and offshore connections. The same pattern is visible in the UK: grid expansion is financial, technical, regulatory, and institutional at the same time.
University partnerships can help bridge the gap between early-stage research and deployable engineering. The difficult step is translation. Transmission innovation has to pass through testing, standards alignment, procurement specifications, safety cases, operational training, and regulatory acceptance before it can be used on live infrastructure. That process can take years, particularly where new technology affects protection, control, or asset risk.
Lower-emission technologies will add another layer to the programme. Transmission expansion carries an environmental footprint through metals, concrete, civil works, construction logistics, land use, and equipment gases. Research into retrofitting, asset life extension, SF6 alternatives, lower-carbon materials, and better condition monitoring can reduce replacement pressure where existing infrastructure can be safely adapted.
The scale of RIIO-T3 also puts skills under pressure. Academic partnerships create routes for postgraduate research, specialist training, and knowledge transfer into transmission engineering. The UK will need more engineers capable of working across high-voltage equipment, power systems analysis, digital tools, cyber-secure communications, and project delivery if planned investment is to become operational network capacity.
The partnerships will be judged by deployed outcomes. Useful innovation will be visible in network planning decisions, asset standards, commissioning practice, control systems, procurement, and field operation. With RIIO-T3 under way, the transmission sector has limited time to convert research capability into tools that help build and operate a much larger grid.
