EMFs.info

Electric and magnetic fields and health

index/glossary | EMFs At A Glance | EMF The Facts (pdf)
  • What are EMFs
    • Terminology – an introduction
    • Electric fields
    • Magnetic fields
    • Units for measuring EMFs
    • Measuring and calculating EMFs
      • “EMF Commercial”
    • Adding fields together
    • Radiofrequencies
    • Screening EMFs
  • Sources
    • Overhead power lines
      • Fields from specific power lines
        • 400 kV
        • 400 kV – specific cases
        • 275 kV
        • 132 kV
        • 66 kV
        • 33 kV
        • 11 kV
        • 400 V/230 V
        • Replacing a 132 kV line with a 400 kV line
      • Summaries of fields from all power lines
      • Factors affecting the field from a power line
        • Voltage
        • Current
        • Clearance
        • Height above ground
        • Conductor bundle
        • Phasing
        • Balance between circuits
        • Balance within circuit
        • Ground resistivity
        • Two parallel lines
      • Calculating and measuring fields from power lines
        • Geometries of power lines
        • Raw data
        • On-line calculator
      • Fields from power lines – more detail on the physics
        • Field lines from a power line
        • The direction of the field from a power line
        • Power law variations in the field from a power line
      • Statistics of power line fields
    • Underground power cables
      • Different types of underground cable
      • Fields from cables in tunnels
      • Gas Insulated Lines (GIL)
      • Underground cables with multiple conductors
      • Effect of height on fields from underground cables
      • Screening fields from underground cables
    • Low-voltage distribution
      • UK distribution wiring
      • USA distribution wiring
    • House wiring
    • Substations
      • National Grid substations
        • Static Var Compensators
      • Sealing-end compounds
      • Distribution substations
      • Final distribution substations
        • Indoor substations
    • Transport
      • EMFs from electric trains (UK)
      • EMFs from cars
    • Appliances
    • Electricity meters
      • Smart meters
      • Traditional meters
    • Occupational exposures
      • Live-line work
      • Static Var Compensators
      • Occupational exposures on pylons
    • Field levels and exposures
      • Personal exposure
      • Other factors that vary with magnetic fields
      • Fields greater than 0.2 or 0.4 µT
    • Screening EMFs
      • Screening fields from underground cables
      • EMF Reduction Devices
  • Known effects
    • Induced currents and fields
    • Microshocks
      • Control of microshocks in the UK
      • Microshocks from bicycles
      • Bees and microshocks
    • EMFs and medical devices
      • Standards relating to pacemakers and other AIMDs
    • Effects of EMFs on equipment
  • Research
    • Types of research
    • Epidemiology
    • Animal and laboratory experiments
    • Mechanisms
    • Specific studies
      • UKCCS
      • CCRG
      • French Geocap study
      • CEGB cohort
      • Imperial College study
  • Current evidence on health
    • Childhood leukaemia
      • Survival from childhood leukaemia
      • Childhood leukaemia and Downs
      • Childhood leukaemia and night-time exposure
      • The “contact current” hypothesis
    • Other health effects
    • Scientific review bodies
      • WHO
      • IARC
    • Electric fields and ions
    • Comparing EMFs to other issues
  • Exposure limits for people
    • Limits in the UK
    • Limits in the EU
    • Limits in the USA
    • Limits in the rest of the world
    • Limits from specific organisations
      • ICNIRP 1998
      • ICNIRP 2010
      • NRPB 1993
      • NRPB 2004
      • EU 2004
      • EU 2013
  • Policy
    • UK policy
      • Power lines and property – UK
    • Compliance with exposure limits
    • European EMF policy
    • Precaution
    • SAGE
      • SAGE First Interim Assessment
        • Government response to SAGE First Interim Assessment
      • SAGE Second Interim Assessment
        • Government response to SAGE Second Interim Assessment
        • SAGE Second Interim Assessment – the full list of recommendations
  • Finding out more
    • EMF measurement and commercial services
    • Links
    • Literature
    • Contact us
  • Static fields
    • Static fields – the expert view
You are here: Home / Research / Ongoing research / UK electricity industry research

UK electricity industry research

This website is run by National Grid on behalf of the UK electricity industry.  This page lists research supported by the UK electricity industry. See also research on EMFs generally.  The electricity industry recognises that, when it supports research, it is vital that the independence of the research is not compromised.  You can see an example of the contract used to ensure this here.

Research supported through ENA

ena logo

The Energy Networks Association runs an EMF research programme which we describe in detail here.

 

Research supported by National Grid

national grid logo

In-house research

National Grid conducts in-house research, principally into sources of exposure and ways of categorising them. This has involved much work on net currents, which are the commonest source of exposure for the general public, and power lines.

 The EMF Biological Research Trust

Instead of supporting biological research directly, National Grid has funded a research trust. The Trust decide which projects to support with no input from industry at all. The Trust gives details of the research it supports on its own web site and its objectives can be found on the Charity Commission website (search for "EMF research").  After 20 years or so of funding, the funding concluded in 2017 and the Trust is now spending the remaining reserves.

Electric Power Research Institute

National Grid belongs to EPRI, the main research organisation for utilities in America, and supports their EMF research programme.

Utilities Threshold Initiative Consortium

National Grid (and ENA) are supporting this Consortium.  The main activity is to fund research at Lawson Health Resrearch Institute into the thresholds for the acute effects in the body on which exposure limits are based, such as magnetophosphenes.

Other research projects

  • National Grid scientists have previously been active in investigating suggestions that electric fields from power lines or corona ions interact with airborne pollutants but now leave this subject to independent scientists.
  • National Grid has previously supported a group at the University of Surrey which specialises in the hormone melatonin and has looked for any links with magnetic fields.
  • National Grid has previously contracted with Microwave Consultants Limited to improve our understanding of tissue conductivities so that we can develop more accurate exposure standards.
  • National Grid and the rest of the electricity industry provided funding of £10,000 per year for four years to the WHO International EMF Project.

Major research projects supported by the electricity industry

The UKCCS

The United Kingdom Childhood Cancer Study (UKCCS) is the world’s largest ever study of its type into childhood cancer. It was originally designed to look at a number of things other than EMFs which were thought to be possible causes of cancer. The UK Electricity Industry provided the funding necessary (around £4M in total) to allow the study to include magnetic fields as well. The funding was provided via an intermediate organisation, the Leukaemia Research Fund, to preserve independence of the researchers from industry, and under a contract which guaranteed that industry would have no influence over the conduct of the study.
The UKCCS reported their results for magnetic fields in 1999. They concluded:

“This study provides no evidence that exposure to magnetic fields associated with the electricity supply in the UK increases risks for childhood leukaemia, cancers of the central nervous system, or any other childhood cancer.”

They have subsequently reported results for proximity to power lines, and for electric fields. More detail on the UKCCS results

Cohort of electricity industry workers

The electricity industry supports research into the health of its own workers. A database has been set up of everyone who worked for the then Central Electricity Generating Board (CEGB) in the late 1970s, over 80,000 people. All these people are being followed up to identify, when they eventually die, the cause of death. New techniques have been developed by National Grid for assessing people’s exposure to magnetic fields over their working life. It is then possible to see whether the cause of death is linked to exposure to magnetic fields. The analysis is done by the University of Birmingham  Institute of Applied Health Research.

Analyses so far have shown no association between leukaemia, brain cancers or heart disease and magnetic fields.

CCRG study of power lines and childhood cancer

The Childhood Cancer Research Group (CCRG) at the University of Oxford has been funded by the Department of Health to conduct a computerised study of the incidence of childhood cancer in relation to power lines in the UK. The study looked at 35,000 cases of childhood cancer from the 1950s to the present, which makes it the largest study of this sort ever conducted. National Grid are assisting by calculating distances from each case to the nearest power line and then estimating magnetic fields from historical records of loads. more detail on the CCRG study

SAHSU study of power lines and adult cancer

The Small Area Health Statistics Unit SAHSU at Imperial College have performed a study of adult cancer in relation to power lines, published in January 2013. This was jointly funded by the Department of Health and the electricity industry, and National Grid calculated exposures in a similar way to the CCRG study.  more detail on the SAHSU study

Study of sources of high fields in homes

The electricity industry and the DTI supported an investigation by HPA into where fields in UK home of greater than 0.4 µT come from. More on this study

Research on power lines

  • See how National Grid responds to requests for data or to support specific research studies

Annual listing

see an annual listing of all publications arising from research supported by the UK electricity industry

Latest news

  • New publication on cancer incidence from the UK electricity industry Cohort Study August 27, 2019
  • How has the reported risk for childhood leukaemia changed over time? February 11, 2019
  • Media stories about microshocks in children’s playground September 10, 2018
  • New studies on leukaemia and distance from power lines June 1, 2018
older news

Contact Us

To contact the electricity industry’s EMF Unit Public Information Line (UK only):
telephone 0845 7023270 or email [email protected].

See Contact us for more contact details including our privacy policy.

About this site

  • What this site covers and what it doesn’t
  • Industry policy
  • Sitemap

Specific questions

  • Affected by a new power line or substation?
  • Building or developing near a power line or substation?
  • EMF measurement and commercial services
  • Microshocks
  • Pacemakers and other medical devices
  • EMF policy in the UK
Site Authorship |Sitemap | Terms and Conditions | Privacy Policy | Cookies | Site Statistics
© 2021 EMFS.info
Navigation
  • What are EMFs
    • Terminology – an introduction
    • Electric fields
    • Magnetic fields
    • Units for measuring EMFs
    • Measuring and calculating EMFs
      • “EMF Commercial”
    • Adding fields together
    • Radiofrequencies
    • Screening EMFs
  • Sources
    • Overhead power lines
      • Fields from specific power lines
        • 400 kV
        • 400 kV – specific cases
        • 275 kV
        • 132 kV
        • 66 kV
        • 33 kV
        • 11 kV
        • 400 V/230 V
        • Replacing a 132 kV line with a 400 kV line
      • Summaries of fields from all power lines
      • Factors affecting the field from a power line
        • Voltage
        • Current
        • Clearance
        • Height above ground
        • Conductor bundle
        • Phasing
        • Balance between circuits
        • Balance within circuit
        • Ground resistivity
        • Two parallel lines
      • Calculating and measuring fields from power lines
        • Geometries of power lines
        • Raw data
        • On-line calculator
      • Fields from power lines – more detail on the physics
        • Field lines from a power line
        • The direction of the field from a power line
        • Power law variations in the field from a power line
      • Statistics of power line fields
    • Underground power cables
      • Different types of underground cable
      • Fields from cables in tunnels
      • Gas Insulated Lines (GIL)
      • Underground cables with multiple conductors
      • Effect of height on fields from underground cables
      • Screening fields from underground cables
    • Low-voltage distribution
      • UK distribution wiring
      • USA distribution wiring
    • House wiring
    • Substations
      • National Grid substations
        • Static Var Compensators
      • Sealing-end compounds
      • Distribution substations
      • Final distribution substations
        • Indoor substations
    • Transport
      • EMFs from electric trains (UK)
      • EMFs from cars
    • Appliances
    • Electricity meters
      • Smart meters
      • Traditional meters
    • Occupational exposures
      • Live-line work
      • Static Var Compensators
      • Occupational exposures on pylons
    • Field levels and exposures
      • Personal exposure
      • Other factors that vary with magnetic fields
      • Fields greater than 0.2 or 0.4 µT
    • Screening EMFs
      • Screening fields from underground cables
      • EMF Reduction Devices
  • Known effects
    • Induced currents and fields
    • Microshocks
      • Control of microshocks in the UK
      • Microshocks from bicycles
      • Bees and microshocks
    • EMFs and medical devices
      • Standards relating to pacemakers and other AIMDs
    • Effects of EMFs on equipment
  • Research
    • Types of research
    • Epidemiology
    • Animal and laboratory experiments
    • Mechanisms
    • Specific studies
      • UKCCS
      • CCRG
      • French Geocap study
      • CEGB cohort
      • Imperial College study
  • Current evidence on health
    • Childhood leukaemia
      • Survival from childhood leukaemia
      • Childhood leukaemia and Downs
      • Childhood leukaemia and night-time exposure
      • The “contact current” hypothesis
    • Other health effects
    • Scientific review bodies
      • WHO
      • IARC
    • Electric fields and ions
    • Comparing EMFs to other issues
  • Exposure limits for people
    • Limits in the UK
    • Limits in the EU
    • Limits in the USA
    • Limits in the rest of the world
    • Limits from specific organisations
      • ICNIRP 1998
      • ICNIRP 2010
      • NRPB 1993
      • NRPB 2004
      • EU 2004
      • EU 2013
  • Policy
    • UK policy
      • Power lines and property – UK
    • Compliance with exposure limits
    • European EMF policy
    • Precaution
    • SAGE
      • SAGE First Interim Assessment
        • Government response to SAGE First Interim Assessment
      • SAGE Second Interim Assessment
        • Government response to SAGE Second Interim Assessment
        • SAGE Second Interim Assessment – the full list of recommendations
  • Finding out more
    • EMF measurement and commercial services
    • Links
    • Literature
    • Contact us
  • Static fields
    • Static fields – the expert view