As with the EMEB, it kept a network of showrooms across its area, to allow customers to pay bills, and order many types of electrical goods. The MEB, Southern Electric and Eastern Electricity merged their showrooms, forming the Powerhouse store chain in the early 1990s. The total number of customers supplied by the board was:[2][3] The amount of electricity, in GWh, sold by Midlands Electricity Board was:[2][3] { "version": 2, "width": 600, "height": 200, "data": [ { "name": "table", "values": [ { "x": 1949, "y": 4059 }, { "x": 1956, "y": 6975 }, { "x": 1961, "y": 10445 }, { "x": 1966, "y": 15311 }, { "x": 1967, "y": 15514 }, { "x": 1968, "y": 16265 }, { "x": 1969, "y": 17328 }, { "x": 1970, "y": 17905 }, { "x": 1971, "y": 18294 }, { "x": 1972, "y": 19589 }, { "x": 1976, "y": 18969 }, { "x": 1978, "y": 19924 }, { "x": 1979, "y": 20888 }, { "x": 1980, "y": 20338 }, { "x": 1981, "y": 19098 }, { "x": 1982, "y": 20209 }, { "x": 1987, "y": 20523 }, { "x": 1988, "y": 21070 }, { "x": 1989, "y": 21635 } ] } ], "scales": [ { "name": "x", "type": "ordinal", "range": "width", "zero": false, "domain": { "data": "table", "field": "x" } }, { "name": "y", "type": "linear", "range": "height", "nice": true, "domain": { "data": "table", "field": "y" } } ], "axes": [ { "type": "x", "scale": "x" }, { "type": "y", "scale": "y" } ], "marks": [ { "type": "rect", "from": { "data": "table" }, "properties": { "enter": { "x": { "scale": "x", "field": "x" }, "y": { "scale": "y", "field": "y" }, "y2": { "scale": "y", "value": 0 }, "fill": { "value": "steelblue" }, "width": { "scale": "x", "band": "true", "offset": -1 } } } } ] } In 1990, as part of the privatisation of the UK electricity industry, the board became Midlands Electricity plc. The new business was split up, and sold several times: the supply business to Npower in 1999, the distribution business to GPU Power UK, who continued to use the ‘a Midlands Electricity company’ tagline for a couple of years, and then sold to Aquila, under whose short ownership it was renamed Aquila Networks,[4] before being purchased by Powergen in 2004, becoming Central Networks, part of E.ON.
