The United Kingdom Central Electricity Board was set up under The Electricity (Supply) Act 1926 to standardise the nation's electricity supply. At that time, the industry consisted of more than 600 electricity supply companies and local authority undertakings, and different areas operated at different voltage

Voltage

Voltage, otherwise known as electrical potential difference or electric tension is the difference in electric potential between two points — or the difference in electric potential energy per unit charge between two points...

s and frequencies

Frequency

Frequency is the number of occurrences of a repeating event per unit time. It is also referred to as temporal frequency.The period is the duration of one cycle in a repeating event, so the period is the reciprocal of the frequency...

 (including DC

Direct current

Direct current is the unidirectional flow of electric charge. Direct current is produced by such sources as batteries, thermocouples, solar cells, and commutator-type electric machines of the dynamo type. Direct current may flow in a conductor such as a wire, but can also flow through...

 in some places). The board's first chairman was Andrew Duncan.

The CEB established the UK's first synchronised AC grid, running at 132 kilovolts

Volt

The volt is the SI derived unit for electric potential, electric potential difference, and electromotive force. The volt is named in honor of the Italian physicist Alessandro Volta , who invented the voltaic pile, possibly the first chemical battery.- Definition :A single volt is defined as the...

 and 50 hertz

Hertz

The hertz is the SI unit of frequency defined as the number of cycles per second of a periodic phenomenon. One of its most common uses is the description of the sine wave, particularly those used in radio and audio applications....

, which by 1933 was a collection of local grids, with emergency interlinks, covering most of England

England

England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...

. This started operating as a national system, the National Grid, in 1938. The CEB ceased to exist when the grid was nationalised by the Electricity Act 1947

Electricity Act 1947 (UK)

The Electricity Act 1947 was an Act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom that nationalised the numerous municipal and privately owned electricity generation and supply utilities in Great Britain...

and taken over by the British Electricity Authority

British Electricity Authority

The British Electricity Authority was established in 1948 with the nationalisation of the Great Britain's electricity supply industry. It was created by means of the Electricity Act 1947...

.

The CEB coexisted with the Electricity Commissioners

Electricity Commissioners

The Electricity Commissioners were a department of the United Kingdom government's Ministry of Transport, and attempted to regulate the electricity supply industry in its early days....

, an industry regulator responsible to the Ministry of Transport

Department for Transport

In the United Kingdom, the Department for Transport is the government department responsible for the English transport network and a limited number of transport matters in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland which are not devolved...

.