What we said we'd do
We have many customers who want to connect to and use our electricity transmission network.
We provide them with network connections, services related to the connection, and ongoing services once they’re connected. We aim to achieve this by becoming a more customer-centric business.
This stakeholder priority is about making it easier for customers to connect to and use the network.
- We will connect 15.3GW of customer capacity, providing the UK with clean power, flexible storage and access to clean and cheaper power from Europe.
- We will invest in additional transformer units to provide more network capacity for our demand-side customers.
- We will provide an agile service tailored to suit the needs of our rapidly changing customer base. We will do this by investing in our customer relationships and support systems.
- We are proposing output delivery incentives (ODIs) to manage outages better and deliver faster connections.
What we have done and what we’re going to do
This reporting year has seen a consolidation of our plans as we work toward net zero, with Ofgem’s approval of our request to deliver 17 large network improvements as part of the Accelerated Strategic Transmission Investment (ASTI) framework. This work will facilitate the connection of low carbon generation (such as offshore wind, new nuclear and interconnectors with Europe), and to respond to changing patterns of demand. Our wider East Coast strategy supports the Government’s ambitious target of 50GW of new wind connections by 2030. Significant network investment will be required to achieve this, and we expect to make numerous submissions to Ofgem as these individual projects develop over the coming years. We will need to work closely with you in the communities affected by these works and will spend significant time helping you understand the need for this new infrastructure and allow you to shape our proposed solutions.
Quality of Connections
This incentive for RIIO-T2 replaces the Customer Satisfaction (CSAT) measure from RIIO-T1 and covers the customer experience throughout the connections journey. In the third year, we didn’t meet the target (7.7/10) and achieved a score of 7.2. We are working hard to improve on this lower score, with customers recognising the challenges we face during their customer journey.
Timeliness of connections
We must send our customers an offer to connect within an agreed timescale. Highest ever number of customer offer requests made in 2023/24 (1,375 in total) with all but 3 sent within the required timescales. This led to a £20k penalty in the incentive.
Generation and demand
We connected 3000MW (3GW) of Generation in 2023/24 and our current forecast for the RIIO-T2 period indicates a connection volume of 16.5GW compared to a baseline of 13.5GW. We also delivered 2 demand connections in 2023/24, connecting 500MVA to the network. Our current forecast for the RIIO-T2 period shows that we will exceed our baseline by 2,296MVA. For both these types of customer connections, we met all customer requirements to connect to the transmission network during 2023/24.