Network constraints

We reviewed our current process and made the improvements as necessary, to ensure any stakeholders with proposed or existing connections affected by known constraints on the transmission and distribution networks will receive better and more timely communication.

The energy system across Great Britain (GB) is becoming increasingly complex with demand for new connections at both the transmission and distribution level growing at a significant rate.

At the start of the ICE plan year, we made a commitment to engage with stakeholders whose projects may be impacted by congestion on the transmission system, this was an emerging issue for us at that time.

We have been engaging with stakeholders to help them understand the GB-wide transmission issue and the solutions that are being developed at both a national and regional level to address it. We have seen interest, applications and acceptances for EHV and HV connections continue to grow however, particularly for generation and storage projects.

We have been working with those customers who are directly impacted, establishing a project team to review our processes and make the changes necessary to ensure they can receive more timely communication and improved levels of service.

We remain committed to supporting our customers and stakeholders and to being open
and transparent about what we know. We continue to take a whole-system approach, working collaboratively with the ESO, NGET and the industry to develop and drive through solutions that will deliver improvements for our customers in terms of connections timescales and cost.

Meeting our commitments

Engagement

We said we would engage with our stakeholders. To do this we have:

• established a dedicated project team to review our processes and work with
  those customers directly impacted, responding to and/or escalating their issues as appropriate;
• engaged with MPs, regional leaders, local authorities and other key stakeholders to help them understand the GB-wide issue and the solutions that are being developed to resolve it and;
• hosted a webinar in March 2023, where stakeholders could engage with us, the ESO and NGET, ask questions and share their experiences.

We will continue to provide opportunities for our stakeholders to engage with us on this important issue, through bilateral discussions, webinars and in-person events held in the coming months. We will seek to include NGET and the ESO in those discussions as appropriate.

Process review and change

To ensure customers receive more timely and meaningful communication as their
project progresses, one of the key process changes we have made, is that we now
issue customers with an indicative outcome letter.

The outcome letter is issued after we receive a response from the ESO and before we issue our formal re-offer letter. It provides details of the ESO’s assessment and the customer’s indicative connection date, capital contributions and associated cancellation charges, allowing them to make a more informed decision about whether to proceed.

Interaction with the ESO

To respond to our stakeholders’ feedback on the importance of making timely submissions to the ESO, we made a commitment to review our processes and minimise our timescales for this type of interaction.

We communicated this commitment to stakeholders who took part in our March webinar, informing them that we are making project progression and modification applications to the ESO within three months of receiving a customer’s validated acceptance and that we will work to reduce this timescale further.

You can watch a recording of our webinar at https://youtu.be/HeBNgWHd1ZQ