A 3D model of industrial piping
Completed

Innovation

Project CLoCC

London

Project CLoCC is National Grid’s successful entry into the 2015 Gas National Innovation Competition (NIC) and aims to minimise the cost and time of new gas connections to the national transmission system (NTS).

Project CLoCC will develop a new web-based customer connections platform which aims to improve a customer’s application experience. The project will also produce ‘off-the-shelf’ standardised designs for connections that can be used regardless of the customer, size of connection, or type of gas. Both of these work streams will be supported by relevant commercial changes.

Through Project CLoCC, we’re aiming to address the main obstacles that hold entry and exit customers back from getting connected – the current cost (up to £2m) and duration (up to three years). Our goal is to halve the cost of a connection to less than £1m, while reducing the time it takes from initial enquiry to being connected to less than one year. The project, which began at the start of the year and is due to be completed towards the end of 2018, focuses on three main areas:

  • developing a new physical connection solution that is tailored to the needs of unconventional gas customers;
  • creating a web-based connections platform that allows producers to compare suitable options for an NTS connection and track progress once their application is under way; and
  • designing new commercial processes to meet the needs of non-traditional customers.