Many customers are contractually required to obtain permission from the network operator prior to the connection of a microgeneration, despite there being no legal requirement for this below 16A per phase.

We believe that the way to address this is to place a licence duty on DNOs that their connection terms must comply at all times with the Electricity Safety, Quality and Continuity Regulations 2002.

Significant progress was made when The Electricity Safety, Quality and Continuity Regulations Act 2003 became law which allows type-approved microgenerators below 16A per phase to be connected without prior permission from network operators. A further encouraging development was the publication in September 2003 of G83/1 – the document that specifies the technical requirements for connecting microgenerators below 16A per phase to the network.

We are working with the government to address the problems of network connection.Details can be accessed at the government's distributed generation website