English

Noun

national grid ‎(plural national grids)

1. An electricity transmission network servicing a whole country.
   • 2013 July 20, “Out of the gloom”, in The Economist, volume 408, number 8845:

     [Rural solar plant] schemes are of little help to industry or other heavy users of electricity. Nor is solar power yet as cheap as the grid. For all that, the rapid arrival of electric light to Indian villages is long overdue. When the national grid suffers its next huge outage, as it did in July 2012 when hundreds of millions were left in the dark, look for specks of light in the villages.

Usage notes

• Mainly used to describe the networks in Malaysia, New Zealand, and the United Kingdom.