Electricity connection - your experiences

[london8]

I would like to know your own experiences about the costs to have the connection of electricity done to the public system.

- The location?
- How many metres from your house to the street to the el. system?
- The price?

I am making this research to know the average cost to make my own plans. Many thanks.

[Dreadnaught]

For electricity, my quotation from UKPN was as follows (in mid 2019):

 

 

For complicated reasons, which I won't bore you with, I got a refund so only ended up paying £4,682.

[ToughButterCup]

https://forum.buildhub.org.uk/search/?q="Connection Cost"&updated_after=any&sortby=relevancy&search_and_or=or

[nod]

It will be difficult to get an average cost 

Ours was as close to the plot as you are likely to get 

I dug a trench that ran two mtres away from the connection point 

Gas €700

Electric £800

Water £1200

 

Sewage quote was 25k

So Like most I installed a treatment plant 

[gc100]

In total around £25,000

 

[Gone West]

- East Kent

- 17m

- £636

 I laid the ducting from the pole to the house with a draw cord and UKPN pulled the cable through and connected both ends.

As you can see there is a huge variation of costs depending on area and contestable and non-contestable costs.

[recoveringbuilder]

Very hard to estimate, we never asked for a quote before starting mainly because we had a couple of plots half a mile up the road from where we were building and we had asked for a quote for them prior to marketing and were given a figure of £2500 so we went on that figure since we were in the same area and much the same situation being that there was a pole on the land in both cases, imagine our horror when we eventually got the quote and it came in at £25,000! When we queried it it turned out that there was no capacity in the line and they would have to bring a new line in from 283m away. It’s a long story previously documented but after a lot of effort we got it reduced to £4,500 but it just goes to show you never to assume anything!

[ProDave]

About £1000 for SSE in the north of Scotland, to connect to an existing cable literally in the verge on the other side of a single track road.

 

the road crossing was done by others so not included.

 

This was a revised price, after other work had been done and I had already opened up the connection pit in the verge and laid a dict with draw string all the way from the connection pit to the meter box, so it had reduced their work to just pull the cable through and make the connection both ends.  I then filled in the connection pit.

[Thedreamer]

4 hours ago, london8 said:

I would like to know your own experiences about the costs to have the connection of electricity done to the public system.

- The location?
- How many metres from your house to the street to the el. system?
- The price?

I am making this research to know the average cost to make my own plans. Many thanks.

 

You won't be able to take any meaningful research from this and the other connection costs posts. It's all dependent on the site and with all utility connections best to assume nothing until the quote has been provided.

 

For our site we had a electricity pole on our field but it couldn't support another household so had to go back to the transformer. 

[tregoningmatt]

Hi, we are in the same boat as Christine, we have received a quote from Western Power for £29,000 plus VAT (which I assume is at 20%) plus wayleaves and groundworks, which will bring us up to around £40K. We are at the end of the line and they have to take new 11kva high voltage lines underground to a new transformer on an existing pole, plus another pole by the road, with close to 300m of HV cable, jointing and so on. We are in West Cornwall, the nearest Independent Connection Provider I can find is in Cardiff (?!), a lot don't do high voltage and the ones that do won't do a single dwelling, so looks like we're stuck with Western Power. I've seen a couple of posts that said they got their DNO's quote down substantially or got a refund later. Is there an established procedure for doing this, or do you just have to argue with them? My reading of the Electricity Act suggests that DNOs have a statutory duty to supply a connection, but £40K is an insane amount - 11kva would be enough to supply about 40 houses...Any help with this would be greatly appreciated!

[Temp]

No, VAT should be 0% to you. You must not pay VAT as you cannot reclaim VAT paid in error. You should ask them to requote specifying VAT at 0% on the grounds this relates to a new house...

 

https://www.gov.uk/guidance/vat-on-fuel-and-power-notice-70119

 

"..the first time connection of a new dwelling or relevant residential or relevant charitable building to the gas or electricity mains supply is zero rated under Group 5 of Schedule 8 to the VAT Act 1994 if the connection is made as part of the construction of the building see Notice 708 Buildings and construction for further details"

 

https://www.gov.uk/guidance/buildings-and-construction-vat-notice-708

 

"First time gas and electricity connections       0%        Fuel and power (VAT Notice 701/19)"

 

If they try and argue that only the "connection" should be zero rated refer them to...

 

"3.3.4 Work closely connected to the construction of the building

Subject to paragraph 3.3.6, your work is closely connected to the construction of the building when it either:

Snip

(b) produces works that allow the building to be used, such as works in connection with the:

Snip

* means of providing water and power to the building (this can extend to the work required to make the connection to the nearest existing supply)"

 

Edited July 26, 2020 by Temp

[Thedreamer]

9 minutes ago, tregoningmatt said:

Hi, we are in the same boat as Christine, we have received a quote from Western Power for £29,000 plus VAT (which I assume is at 20%) plus wayleaves and groundworks, which will bring us up to around £40K. We are at the end of the line and they have to take new 11kva high voltage lines underground to a new transformer on an existing pole, plus another pole by the road, with close to 300m of HV cable, jointing and so on. We are in West Cornwall, the nearest Independent Connection Provider I can find is in Cardiff (?!), a lot don't do high voltage and the ones that do won't do a single dwelling, so looks like we're stuck with Western Power. I've seen a couple of posts that said they got their DNO's quote down substantially or got a refund later. Is there an established procedure for doing this, or do you just have to argue with them? My reading of the Electricity Act suggests that DNOs have a statutory duty to supply a connection, but £40K is an insane amount - 11kva would be enough to supply about 40 houses...Any help with this would be greatly appreciated!

 

We got ours down by:

 

using ducting and a drawcord

own contractor did trench work and back filing

applied for a grant (this connection was with SSE)

went back and forth for months with SSE with a view to reducing the quote as much as possible

 

was not expecting this but sometime after the connection was done and dusted we received a random cheque from SSE no further information just that we had been overcharged. I checked the quote all was as expected so must of been an internal error that I had never seen.

 

The connection should be zero rated for VAT if for a new build.

 

[Temp]

As for the actual amount... 

 

300m of 11kV cable and a transformer is never going to be cheap. I think 11kv cable in trench is over £60 a meter. That alone accounts for £18,000...

 

https://www2.theiet.org/forums/forum/messageview.cfm?catid=205&threadid=38147

 

Example costs here from another DNO..

 

https://www.ofgem.gov.uk/ofgem-publications/44527/8566-edfconchsch.pdf

 

Edited July 26, 2020 by Temp

[Temp]

38 minutes ago, tregoningmatt said:

11kva would be enough to supply about 40 houses.

 

?? Pretty sure it's just 11kv not 11kva (11kva is only enough for one electric shower).

 

If they are quoting for a much bigger supply than you need I believe there are ways of reclaiming a share of the infrastructure cost when other houses are connected. 

 

See bottom of page 30..

 

https://www.ukpowernetworks.co.uk/internet/en/about-us/documents/UKPN-CCCMS-April-2017-v1.0-PXM-2017-04-06.pdf

 

See if your DNO will do same.

 

Edited July 26, 2020 by Temp

[PeterW]

Do you have the plan WP have given you ..? From what you’ve described, WP are extending the 11Kv section to a new transformer but have they said why they can’t run a standard 3P to you at 440v ..?

[tregoningmatt]

Does an outbuilding conversion count as a new build? Thanks Temp, must be 11kv then. We are on our own up a 300m track so there are (I hope!) no plans to build more houses. I have attached their plan, there is a low voltage line to our current house which is 50m from the outbuilding but they've said the volt drop is such that they can't put any more demand on the line, or put another LV line alongside it.

Emu_18062020_130131.overlay-Default-000.pdf

[recoveringbuilder]

I think we were successful in eventually getting the cost reduced because of several factors and also the fact that we just wouldn’t accept their quote. You’re right enough about the electricity act and I quoted this to them along with excerpts taken from their website saying they are constantly upgrading the system to cope with demand and supplying connections to householders at affordable prices. I just kept at them although I think on our side was the fact that there is a piece of land next to us which has planning for 5 houses, although they originally said that we would have to pay the full amount and we POSSIBLY would get a refund if there were other requests for connections within a certain amount of time. The fact that the plots next to us were (and still are) on the market for ridiculous prices made us uneasy about them selling within the allotted time and therefore we would have ended up paying for the work to be done and never getting any refund.We were also fortunate in that the pole in our land had no way leave so we threatened them with requesting it’s removal. I believe these factors swayed it for us , either that or they just got fed up listening to my complaints!

[LA3222]

3 minutes ago, Christine Walker said:

We were also fortunate in that the pole in our land had no way leave so we threatened them with requesting it’s removal.

I would suggest that badgering utility suppliers does nothing, an individual householder is small potatoes - this however gives you all the aces and is probably the reason why the DNO decided to play ball. Leverage is king in this situation.

[Thedreamer]

22 hours ago, LA3222 said:

I would suggest that badgering utility suppliers does nothing, an individual householder is small potatoes - this however gives you all the aces and is probably the reason why the DNO decided to play ball. Leverage is king in this situation.

 

I would disagree with this.

I went backwards and forwards with our DNO. The first quote came down by thousands when I suggested an alternative routes. 

 

In terms of time spend to £s saved this probably added the most value to our self build. 

 

I would rather send out three or four emails then lose thousands of pounds.

[LA3222]

1 hour ago, Thedreamer said:

 

I would disagree with this.

I went backwards and forwards with our DNO. The first quote came down by thousands when I suggested an alternative routes. 

 

In terms of time spend to £s saved this probably added the most value to our self build. 

 

I would rather send out three or four emails then lose thousands of pounds.

I'd be interested to k ow how much you saved and where?

 

Suggesting an alternate route is an obvious point that everyone getting a connection should check.  I moved my connection point 30m closer to the boundary to save a few quid.

 

Duct and draw cord - this sounds pretty standard? 40m of duct and drawcord was laid by my DNO for my connection.

 

Grant - unique to SSE? So not many can benefit from that.

 

Using your own contractor is a hit and miss tactic. If road openings are involved you won't save much if anything and a lot of the work can only be done by the DNO. For my connection, the amount of work I could subcontract out was so small that no one was interested in taking it on. It was only worth me doing 30m that went over my land/shared driveway.

 

From your posts I would suggest your biggest lever over the DNO was the fact that their pole sat on your land.

 

For context, my connection is 3ph and involved laying a new cable down 70m of unadopted Lane for which I had the pleasure of handing over a check for 11% of the total job cost. It is what it is, some you win and some you lose?‍♂️

 

Note. If you can use your own contractor to lay all your services at once through a road opening then you may make some good savings.

Edited July 27, 2020 by LA3222

[Temp]

On 26/07/2020 at 13:07, tregoningmatt said:

Does an outbuilding conversion count as a new build?

 

Possibly. If it's just ancillary to an existing house (eg a guest bedroom, games room etc) then no. If it's going to be a new dwelling that can be "separately occupied" and sold off as a separate dwelling then yes.

 

What does your planning permission say?

 

Edit: If it's a conversion they should charge 5% VAT and you can reclaim that from HMRC.

Edited July 27, 2020 by Temp

[Thedreamer]

6 hours ago, LA3222 said:

I'd be interested to k ow how much you saved and where?

 

Sure

 

6 hours ago, LA3222 said:

 

Suggesting an alternate route is an obvious point that everyone getting a connection should check.  I moved my connection point 30m closer to the boundary to save a few quid.

 

Just to provide some background our connection was 220 odd meters, through a single track road road in 2015. Looking back on my emails and there are quite a few, the quote started off at £10,900, then dropped to £6,300 after reviewing the route and options regarding a couple of 3rd party wayleaves.

 

6 hours ago, LA3222 said:

 

Duct and draw cord - this sounds pretty standard? 40m of duct and drawcord was laid by my DNO for my connection.

 

The quote was £1,900 cheaper with me doing this. The prefer choice was for SSE to blind the trench with sand. I had to supply the ducting and a rope at a cost of around £350. 

 

6 hours ago, LA3222 said:

 

Grant - unique to SSE? So not many can benefit from that.

 

North of Highland so only for self build/community groups up here. £1,500 received from them.

 

Not that well know even here, might be other charitable trusts which provide similar grants in other parts of the UK.

 

6 hours ago, LA3222 said:

 

Using your own contractor is a hit and miss tactic. If road openings are involved you won't save much if anything and a lot of the work can only be done by the DNO. For my connection, the amount of work I could subcontract out was so small that no one was interested in taking it on. It was only worth me doing 30m that went over my land/shared driveway.

 

My quote included the road opening.

 

6 hours ago, LA3222 said:

 

From your posts I would suggest your biggest lever over the DNO was the fact that their pole sat on your land.

 

No apart from the post being mentioned at the start it was not considered again. Family live in surrounding houses and the cable was just supplying to many house to support another property.

 

6 hours ago, LA3222 said:

 

For context, my connection is 3ph and involved laying a new cable down 70m of unadopted Lane for which I had the pleasure of handing over a check for 11% of the total job cost. It is what it is, some you win and some you lose?‍♂️

 

Our cable was really thick but we have a single phase.

 

To summarise

 

I spent £350 on ducting

A day work on the digger £400

Electricity connection 220 meter and road opening £6,300

Less grant £1,500 

Less £980 - this was a cheque I received at a later date.

 

Total connection cost just over £4,500

 

I then constructed a box for the temporary supply from old fence posts and scrap materials.

 

I paid a further small fee of about £150 to move the cable into the house from the temporary supply.

 

6 hours ago, LA3222 said:

Note. If you can use your own contractor to lay all your services at once through a road opening then you may make some good savings.

 

The road crossing for SSE had to be close to the transformer they had their own local contractor, but for the water/phone connection, I dug down to find a duct which had enough room for another water pipe and phone line, threaded a drawcord through and cost nothing apart from a minor permit for apparatus under the road about £100. 

 

[recoveringbuilder]

As an aside to this, when the project manager came out to see us prior to starting the job and we explained to him about what had happened he said this is what they do, produce a large quote and if you’re daft enough to pay it that’s great for them but you should always challenge it. He also was extremely helpful in putting in the ducting for water and telephone at the same time as he did the road crossing.

[Thedreamer]

21 minutes ago, Christine Walker said:

As an aside to this, when the project manager came out to see us prior to starting the job and we explained to him about what had happened he said this is what they do, produce a large quote and if you’re daft enough to pay it that’s great for them but you should always challenge it. He also was extremely helpful in putting in the ducting for water and telephone at the same time as he did the road crossing.

 

Strongly agree with this. Try and get the local team out for a sensible conversation.

 

I did that for our quote, took a pinch bar with an SSE employee and we chartered our way through the bedrock for the wayleave route. 

[tregoningmatt]

I've now met with a low voltage planner and HV planner who came out to site, spoken to the HV planner yesterday and he said there is no room for negotiation, the price is the price, also that the volt drop on the 300m run to our place ruled out putting in 3 phase and doubling the voltage...there is 11000 volts going into the existing pole at the bottom of our track so basically we are being asked to pay £35K to take the HV supply 150m further up our track. Unfortunately the other transformer in the hamlet is the same distance away, so no help there. Competition in Connections is a farce if you're a domestic customer who just wants 1 connection. Will keep trying...