Connections 101 sessions

We hosted 'connections 101' sessions to introduce stakeholders to our connections business. The sessions will be aimed at stakeholders who are new or unfamiliar with our policies and practices and will explain the end-to-end process and what stakeholders can expect.

To deliver this action, we first identified stakeholder groups that we deal with for new connections but may be less familiar with all aspects of our process, policies and practices.

To do this, we looked at the groups who typically approached us with questions or requests for engagement. The stakeholder groups that we identified were house builders and developers, installers of low carbon technologies, local authorities and the agricultural community.

To reach more of these stakeholders, we identified and engaged with their trade and representative bodies. We received interest from the National Farmers Union (NFU) and the Countryside Land and Business Association (CLA) who represent the interests of rural landowners and businesses. We engaged with both groups in the run up to the event and invited their members to ask questions and provide feedback so that we could tailor the content of the sessions around their particular areas of interest and need.

We delivered two connections 101 sessions in the ICE plan year. The sessions provided attendees with an overview of our end-to-end connections process, covering upfront support and resources, how to make an application, the different types of connection offers that are available and typical timescales and cost.

We discussed our role and responsibilities as a DNO and other topics that those stakeholders had told us were priorities, including grid capacity, wayleaves and safety. We also provided an overview of the changes brought about by the Access and Forward-Looking Charges Significant Code Review and explained what it could mean for them as connections customers and stakeholders.

We engaged with more than 100 stakeholders in total. Representatives from both the CLA and the NFU confirmed that their members had provided positive feedback and that all those who responded, said they were satisfied with the session they attended.