Clawback of capacity after a maximum build-out period

We will implement standard contract milestones regarding clawback of unused capacity after a maximum build-out period.

We made a commitment to implement standard contract milestones to allow capacity to be recovered on projects where we believed there may be unused capacity following the energisation of a connection.

There are instances where some customers do not use all of their contracted capacity and on energisation of the connection do not see fit to release it back to the network for other customers to use. Introducing appropriate milestones within our contracts reflecting how long after energisation the customer has to install all of the plant and equipment and take up all of their contracted capacity, gives us the ability to free up underutilised network capacity for use by other Northern Powergrid customers.

We set ourselves a target to have a build-out time limit implemented in 100% of Northern Powergrid connections contracts by March 2017. The limits included in our contracts are in line with the best practice recommendations from the ENA for all DNOs. The threshold was set at 18 months across all customers from the point that a connection is first energised.

Our terms and conditions were updated to reflect the changes and we briefed stakeholders at our Connections Customer Forums and at our technical workshop on what this could mean. Since the end of March 2017, all Northern Powergrid contracts have included new standard contract milestone terms and conditions.

• Update from our Connections Customer Forum in April 2017
• Update from our Connections Customer Forum in November 2016