National Grid worker

How much will it cost to design my connection?

Once you sign your connection offer, we start designing your connection.

As we invest in our network through the development of the necessary assets for your specific connection, costs that are incurred to deliver the work needed.  We call these costs ‘securities’. At this stage we request a form of enduring financial guarantee to ensure that you remain committed to the work we’re doing to provide your connection. The guarantee could be a letter of credit, evidence of a comparable credit rating to ESO’s, or funds lodged in escrow. 

Please note that we only ever call upon these securities if you decide that you want to terminate your connection agreement, or reduce your connection requirements during the connection journey. These costs would cover any of our spend up to that point. 

If your project runs as planned, the ESO won’t need to call upon your security.

You can learn more about financial securities in sections 2 and 15 of the Connection and Use of System Code (CUSC). There’s also a dedicated guidance document available for you that provides further information for generation projects.