British Gas

British Gas is an energy and home services provider in the United Kingdom. It is the trading name of British Gas Services Limited and British Gas New Heating Limited, both subsidiaries of Centrica. Serving around twelve million homes in the UK, British Gas is the biggest UK energy supplier and is considered one of the Big Six dominating the gas and electricity market in the United Kingdom.

The brand British Gas remains from the demerger of the British Gas Corporation in 1997, which formed Centrica, BG Group and Transco. The British Gas Corporation was a result of the restructuring of the UK gas industry following the Gas Act 1972. The act merged all of the area boards and created the British Gas Corporation.

The British Gas Corporation was privatised as British Gas plc by the Thatcher government and on 8 December 1986 its shares were floated on the London stock market.

Centrica trades as Scottish Gas in Scotland.

History

1812-1948

The Gas Light and Coke Company was the first public utility company in the world. It was founded by Frederick Albert Winsor and incorporated by Royal Charter on 30 April 1812 under the seal of King George III. It continued to thrive for the next 136 years, expanding into domestic services whilst absorbing many smaller companies including the Aldgate Gas Light and Coke Company (1819), the City of London Gas Light and Coke Company (1870), the Equitable Gas Light Company (1871), the Great Central Gas Consumer's Company (1870), Victoria Docks Gas Company (1871), Western Gas Light Company (1873), Imperial Gas Light and Coke Company (1876), Independent Gas Light and Coke Company (1876), the London Gas Light Company (1883), Richmond Gas Company (1925), Brentford Gas Company (1926), Pinner Gas Company (1930) and Southend-on-Sea and District Gas Company (1932).

British

British may refer to:

Places

Peoples and culture

Gas

Gas is one of the four fundamental states of matter (the others being solid, liquid, and plasma). A pure gas may be made up of individual atoms (e.g. a noble gas like neon), elemental molecules made from one type of atom (e.g. oxygen), or compound molecules made from a variety of atoms (e.g. carbon dioxide). A gas mixture would contain a variety of pure gases much like the air. What distinguishes a gas from liquids and solids is the vast separation of the individual gas particles. This separation usually makes a colorless gas invisible to the human observer. The interaction of gas particles in the presence of electric and gravitational fields are considered negligible as indicated by the constant velocity vectors in the image. One type of commonly known gas is steam.

The gaseous state of matter is found between the liquid and plasma states, the latter of which provides the upper temperature boundary for gases. Bounding the lower end of the temperature scale lie degenerative quantum gases which are gaining increasing attention. High-density atomic gases super cooled to incredibly low temperatures are classified by their statistical behavior as either a Bose gas or a Fermi gas. For a comprehensive listing of these exotic states of matter see list of states of matter.