Installation

If you’re considering installing a renewable energy system, depending on your property and the type of installation, you may need to get planning permission or a building warrant from your local planning authority. Make sure you have the right permissions in place before beginning installation.

You should always use a reputable installer who is certified under the Microgeneration Certification Scheme (MCS) and uses MCS-certified products. This will help you to ensure the quality of your installation and the level of customer care that you receive. To be eligible for payments from the Smart Export Guarantee, your system must be installed by an MCS-certified installer.

For all renewable energy systems, you should talk to more than one installer and obtain three quotes.

Connecting your generation and storage to the network

Electricity North West owns and maintains the electricity network of overhead lines and underground cables that bring power to 2.5 million homes and businesses in the North West.

From small domestic-sized installations through to large business and industrial scale projects, if you are planning to connect new generators and/or storage to our network, you need to inform us or make an application to connect your system to the electricity grid.

It’s important that you talk to us first about your new generator and/or storage installation so that we can assess whether we need to carry out work to the local electricity network to facilitate your connection.

If you are installing a generator and/or storage at a single premises, it’s unlikely that we will need to carry out work. For larger projects, we may need to build new infrastructure which will affect the time and cost of your project.

For more information, please visit the connections pages of our website.

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