Britain’s Energy Transmission Network Operator Eyes Data Center Overhaul

National Grid, which operates the electricity and gas transmission networks serving most of Great Britain and owns numerous gas and electric utilities in the US, is preparing for a major overhaul of its IT infrastructure, looking to consolidate data centers and modernize its entire computing network.

The goal is to improve “service delivery speed, scalability, and flexibility delivered through the optimization of data center footprint, automation of operations, and the developing and implementing hybrid cloud architectures that meet National Grid’s current needs and can flex to meet our future needs,” according to a public notice the investor-owned company put out last week.

The contracts would be for data center colocation services on both sides of the Atlantic, hardware managed services, mainframes, and migration services.

It’s unclear what exactly the announcement’s authors meant by “hybrid cloud architectures,” but the hardware managed services section includes among other things “services to provide operational support for scope of existing data center and cloud estate,” and PaaS, SaaS, and IaaS “in private and public cloud.”

The current estimated total value of the contracts excluding tax is $210 million, although the company hasn’t yet finalized the total scope of work. National Grid expects to publish contract notice in early February.