AVOID COMPLEXITY IN YOUR NEW GAS CONNECTION

In gas connection and metering, even relatively simple projects involve a variety of skills and processes, requiring a range of expertise and resources. For any business with a gas-infrastructure need, using one provider to handle everything is bound to create efficiencies, saving time, effort and money.

Since 1986, National Gas Metering has specialised in commercial gas and metering services, and its Siteworks team offers a full one-stop-shop service. As Carl Evans, Siteworks Lead, explains, “Any business that requires a gas installation can come to us for everything – no matter how complex the project. We have a design team, a projectmanagement team, and a team that organises all the metering elements.”

The company tackles new connections, disconnections, upgrades, downgrades, alterations and removals. It can install outlet pipework at a customer’s site, and carry out upgrades without interruption at missioncritical locations such as hospitals and factories, installing new facilities in parallel with existing supplies.

Across this wide range of projects, many different services might be needed. “Our Siteworks team can provide them all,” adds Carl. “From checking the capacity in the network to completing all the civil engineering involved in building and installing the meter kiosk, we can do it. We even take care of logistical details such as procuring Section 50 street-works licences.”

For high-usage sites, the team installs AMR (Advanced meter reading) and correctors that can provide half-hourly reads, feeding directly into the customer’s SCADA system. This is particularly valuable for powergeneration sites with a carbon-capture element to their contracts, and an obligation to report to the local distribution network operator.

A different approach

While several companies provide gasinfrastructure services, very few offer a complete end-to-end solution for all kinds of projects. National Gas Metering is unusual in this, and recent research shows that customers in a variety of industries value this rounded approach. Plus, the efficiencies this offers are backed by a world-leading safety record and a reputation for engineering excellence.

National Gas Metering is also unusual in its ability to work across all four pressure tiers. As the UK’s largest manager of gas meters for industrial, commercial and residential application, it holds all the certifications required to work on the gas grid – from low-pressure domestic supplies to the highpressure national network.

In spite of its size and wide range of services, the company is highly flexible in working with other utilities on site, and competitive in its pricing. It also uses its breadth of experience to help customers plan ahead: where there’s a tendency to begin projects with the assumption that grid connections will be swift and straightforward, National Grid Metering can prevent costly surprises.

Senior Design Engineer, Ian Wilson, points out the importance of being proactive: “Investigations should begin at the earliest opportunity to avoid unexpected costs and programme delays. So if people come to us as soon as possible, we can then approach the gas networks and make enquiries. We have no qualms about going out to site – we don’t just do desktop surveys. We can see what our customers are seeing and can advise them, even at an early stage.”

This concern for the whole project – and willingness to be involved from the very start – underlines all National Gas Metering’s services. Most importantly, it’s helping to raise standards and control costs in a safety-critical industry.