Electricity Supply Costs

[Kelvin]

30 minutes ago, SteamyTea said:

Some people have found that there is no wayleave agreement when cables cross their land, then use that as a bargaining point.

Also try to design out the need for such a large load, PV and battery/thermal storage can reduce the peak power considerably.

 

This is a good point and read the long running thread about that last night. Thanks. 

[SteamyTea]

4 minutes ago, Kelvin said:

 

This is a good point and read the long running thread about that last night. Thanks. 

I just went to sleep, better use of night time.

[Kelvin]

lol

 

Have any of you got experience of these guys. I just spoke to one of the their agents who was really helpful. She said when we get to the quote stage if it's still more than I think is reasonable they can help challenge quote if I'm getting nowhere myself. They charge a fee for this. I didn't get into how much that fee was etc. 

 

New Electricity Connections - Mains electric for homes & businesses | GEC (gasandelectricityconnections.co.uk)

[WWilts]

Initial quote from DNO was around £10k.

 

Called their quote person and had a chat to understand what options might be possible.

 

Then wrote to them saying we were interested in whatever we could get by jointing into the cable(s) at/near the front of our property. Minimising or avoiding the digging up of public footpath, because that seemed to drive costs way up.

 

Eventually quote came down to around £3k including about £1k for jointing on to a relatively new cable that was put in to supply neighbours. We took it. 3 phase too.

 

In our case the softly softly approach worked. But if victory is relatively certain then challenging their quote might work as well or better.

[Kelvin]

Update

 

New quote is £5600 for 100amp connection and that also includes the cost of upgrading the transformer. So all good. Onto sorting out the borehole now. 

[patp]

On 27/07/2021 at 12:28, Kelvin said:

lol

 

Have any of you got experience of these guys. I just spoke to one of the their agents who was really helpful. She said when we get to the quote stage if it's still more than I think is reasonable they can help challenge quote if I'm getting nowhere myself. They charge a fee for this. I didn't get into how much that fee was etc. 

 

New Electricity Connections - Mains electric for homes & businesses | GEC (gasandelectricityconnections.co.uk)

I would be interested in any experience too. We had to fight our own corner when dealing with Anglian Water and always wonder if we missed a trick.

[gc100]

2 hours ago, patp said:

I would be interested in any experience too. We had to fight our own corner when dealing with Anglian Water and always wonder if we missed a trick.

What happened with Anglian water ?

[patp]

Long story as short as I can.

 

There turned out to be a 4in water main slap bang under our proposed foundations. Anglian water quoted to move it West by about 8m then back East around the perimeter of the site. £17,000! You do have the right to use other contractors for the bulk of the work. They must be registered on Lloyds List. They have to pay to be on the list. We went out to tender from a few on the list. Most did not even reply. One said, despite being a nationwide organisation, that they "did not cover that area". Found one to quote. His part of the job was about £7K. Went back to AW for them to now quote for the turning it on and off and testing and they quoted £12k. Figures are from memory (!) but you get my drift. 

When asked to itemise their quote they told us that they did not work like that. It was an estimate and that is all they could provide. I eventually got hold of a manager who told the costings of materials etc was a "commercially sensitive" and not available to the general public. I complained and got nowhere and took them to the Ombudsman in the middle of Covid and got nowhere. 

It is my opinion that they had an "agreement" with the large contractors to leave their area alone. The small contractor that did quote knew he didn't stand a chance because he had never won a quote.

[DragsterDriver]

On 12/08/2021 at 09:30, Kelvin said:

Update

 

New quote is £5600 for 100amp connection and that also includes the cost of upgrading the transformer. So all good. Onto sorting out the borehole now. 

Oh!

mine is a replacement dwelling and U.K. power network are saying they have no spare capacity so they’re lubing me up for a transformer...

 

how about reconnect the old cable? ?

[Kelvin]

21 minutes ago, DragsterDriver said:

Oh!

mine is a replacement dwelling and U.K. power network are saying they have no spare capacity so they’re lubing me up for a transformer...

 

how about reconnect the old cable? ?

 

It is odd that both quotes include a transformer upgrade and the price difference is so huge. The advice is to question whatever quote you get. 

[DragsterDriver]

2 minutes ago, Kelvin said:

 

It is odd that both quotes include a transformer upgrade and the price difference is so huge. The advice is to question whatever quote you get. 

I’ll report back when I get a quote, they could say transformer quick enough though!

[MBT6]

On 26/07/2021 at 12:51, Thedreamer said:

This is a well covered topic on the forum, worth doing a search for previous posts.

 

My advice is never accept the first quote. We had all sort of wild numbers chucked at us from SSE for a road crossing and 220 meters of cable.

 

If it's helpful about 5-6 years ago I spent:

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

 

 

 

 

How did you get that quote from SSE?

 

I am looking into the costs of getting similar work to you done, in the Highlands, a road crossing and about 180 meters of cable, my family own the land on both sides of a public single track road, but we need to cross the road to set to a potential house site.

 

Was just thinking about getting a quote from SSE see how feasible it would be, it is not clear on their website how to go about getting quote from them.

[markc]

I would ‘mole’ under the road if it’s public and only single track (single track causes a lot of hassle to get a permit to dig/close).

you dig the two holes either side of road and all the trenches and save yourself a fortune.

[jamieled]

1 hour ago, MBT6 said:

 

How did you get that quote from SSE?

 

I am looking into the costs of getting similar work to you done, in the Highlands, a road crossing and about 180 meters of cable, my family own the land on both sides of a public single track road, but we need to cross the road to set to a potential house site.

 

Was just thinking about getting a quote from SSE see how feasible it would be, it is not clear on their website how to go about getting quote from them.

You can get a budget quote from SSE to get a rough idea of cost first before getting a detailed quote if you need it:

New electricity supplies - SSEN

 

[saveasteading]

4 hours ago, markc said:

would ‘mole’ under the road if it’s public

Agreed. you need permission from the council, but you shouldn't need traffic lights, and don't need to cut and rebuild the road using an approved contractor.

It is a surprisingly primitive process, and often by small business (man with a van and trailer). Dig a hole each side, push a pipe through with a jack until it pops out.

Somehow leave a duct behind (I assume this is easy and standard).

[Thedreamer]

7 hours ago, MBT6 said:

 

How did you get that quote from SSE?

 

I am looking into the costs of getting similar work to you done, in the Highlands, a road crossing and about 180 meters of cable, my family own the land on both sides of a public single track road, but we need to cross the road to set to a potential house site.

 

Was just thinking about getting a quote from SSE see how feasible it would be, it is not clear on their website how to go about getting quote from them.

 

 

By the points mentioned in my original post.

 

An afternoon laying ducting & drawcord. 

 

Another evening putting together a grant application.

 

Multiple emails to the quoter to work on the most effective opition. 

 

I had loads of bedrock to navigate my way through. One Saturday I spend an entire afternoon with an iron pinch bar, to ensure we avoided any rock breaking.

 

Asking SSE to come out and walk my route and being extra nice. 

 

By doing the above it came down by thousands from the original figure. 

 

Your wayleave should be more straightforward but you will still need to go through the process.

 

1 hour ago, saveasteading said:

Agreed. you need permission from the council, but you shouldn't need traffic lights, and don't need to cut and rebuild the road using an approved contractor.

It is a surprisingly primitive process, and often by small business (man with a van and trailer). Dig a hole each side, push a pipe through with a jack until it pops out.

Somehow leave a duct behind (I assume this is easy and standard).

 

During the twlight I may have dug and found an existing duct for our water pipe/telephone. Some where in the region of £500 to £750 saved in permits and road opening contractor cost.    

[Kelvin]

Resurrecting this...

 

The final quote was £1116 which I've now paid and SSEN plan on doing the works in the next 5 weeks. In my experience getting a budget estimate was meaningless as I think they just made it up. Also, worth noting for future reference while there is a 3 month limit for the quote you can extend this if you aren't ready.