National Grid secures 73.3 acres for planned Teesside substation
Initial capacity of 1,440 MVA is scheduled for the end of 2029, while the land deal leaves cost and AI customer commitments undisclosed.
Ines Halvorsen
An Oct. 28 land agreement secured 73.3 acres at Dorman Point on Teesside for National Grid plc LONNG NYSENGG to develop a new electricity substation. Teesworks' Nov. 2 announcement gives no purchase price or construction budget, but schedules initial 1,440 MVA capacity for the end of 2029. The seller will remediate the land over six months before handover to National Grid Electricity Transmission.
Steel River Power Limited is the contracted recipient of the additional capacity, under an agreement Teesworks dates to 2024. The announcement names no AI data-centre customer and discloses neither an electricity tariff nor the capacity contract's duration.
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Tees Valley Mayor Ben Houchen describes potential expansion to 3.2 GW in the release, without a commissioning date for that larger figure. The land agreement advances the planned substation, while the announcement leaves the cost and timetable for that expansion unspecified.
National Grid's New York-listed shares fell 0.3 per cent to US$83.95 at the Oct. 30 close, at 4 p.m. EDT, according to its NYSENGG quote. That closing quote predates Teesworks' Nov. 2 announcement.
Initial Capacity Is Scheduled For The End Of 2029
The planned substation, called Teesside Node A, will occupy land directly beneath existing high-voltage overhead transmission lines. Teesworks says the location sits beneath both 275 kV and 400 kV lines, placing the proposed installation beside existing transmission infrastructure.
The release describes the initial capacity in MVA, while quoting Houchen's account of contracted capacity and expansion in GW. Those descriptions should remain separate: the dated commissioning schedule is for 1,440 MVA by the end of 2029.
"Having a contracted 1.44GW capacity, with further expansion up to 3.2GW in the near future, means we can finally compete for those projects," Houchen said in the release.
Steel River Power says it owns and operates the private electricity distribution system serving Teesworks, formerly a steelworks site. The network operator is the identified capacity counterparty; the announcement does not disclose a corresponding electricity purchase by a data-centre tenant.
In its Nov. 2 statement, Teesworks puts that existing network's capacity at 360 MVA, with 200 MVA currently available for businesses at the estate. It says the additional capacity was contracted to meet known future industrial demand.
The announcement does not identify a planning approval or give a consent reference for the new substation. It also supplies no transformer delivery schedule, construction-start date or separate timetable for expanding beyond the initial installation.
National Grid head of land Matt Pearce describes the substation in the release as part of the Great Grid Upgrade. The utility says it owns and maintains the high-voltage transmission network in England and Wales.
National Grid's next scheduled investor update is its half-year results on Nov. 5. At Teesside, the next physical step is the six-month remediation programme announced on Nov. 2, followed by handover ahead of the scheduled end-of-2029 initial capacity.
