Frequently asked questions

Being without power can cause extra difficulties. Our Priority Services Register can provide you with the extra assistance you may need to help you before, during or after a power cut. You may be medically dependent on electricity, have a young family or your circumstances may have temporarily changed. The service is available to anyone who may need our support.

Your electricity supplier is the company you choose to buy your electricity from, and who you pay your bills to. If you’ve recently moved house or you’re about to move into a new property you may be wondering who supplies the electricity and who the electricity bills are paid too. Use our online tool to find your supplier.

Your meter belongs to your electricity supplier i.e. British Gas. If you have lost your meter key or card, you will need to contact your supplier for assistance.

An MPAN (Meter Point Administration Number) is a 13 digit number issued by your Distribution Network Operator (Electricity North West). It is unique to your supply and used by energy suppliers to locate your supply information for billing.

You can find your MPAN on your energy bill, or if it is for a new connection, we can provide it for you.

Once you have accepted our quotation for your new electricity connection, your next step is to decide who will supply your electricity. Your chosen supplier will fit your meter. Electricity North West is not a supplier and therefore, we are unable to carry out this work for you.

For more information please see our 'Getting your meter fitted' guide, which will take you through the process required to have your meter fitted and connected.

If you require your meter to be moved further than one metre in distance, or if it affects the service position to your property, you will need to apply for a service alteration via our connections team.

A cut-out is a piece of electrical equipment that forms the link between our electricity cable and the internal wires in your property.

A substation houses electrical equipment to keep the network running and provides an electricity supply to houses and businesses. We have substations across the North West in a variety of locations. We regularly maintain them however if you find a problem with them such as overgrown weeds, graffiti or fly tipping, please get in touch to report it. Call us on 0800 195 4141 or contact us online.

You have to register with line search to obtain our cable plans. Charges may be applicable.

A service cable is the cable from the road or electricity pole, which feeds the electricity supply into your meter.

Applying for a new connection is simple. You can use our online application service to plan your work using our interactive map and get yourself an estimate easily. Click below to go to our application.

The time it takes to complete a connection depends on the size, scale and location of the connection you’re looking to do. We work to industry performance standards (Guaranteed Standards of Performance) that set the target timescales we work to for all new connections. 

There are a number of factors that can also impact on lead times for completing a connection after you’ve accepted and arranged payment. These could include:

• land consents- landowners permission may be required to access third party land
• traffic management
• local council permits
• impact on other customers- if your connection requires an outage or shutdown that will affect other customers
• engineering complexities- if your connection is located in an area with engineering difficulties and complexities
• other consents- some connections may require consents from other bodies such as the National Trust and Environment Agency

Large scale works may require reinforcement works which may have limitations such as the work can only be carried out during the summer month etc and may impact your project. Extra High Voltage (EHV) connections will take longer than Low Voltage and High Voltage projects. 

There are no acceptance charges for domestic connections (connections to 1-4 propertied or a single connection under 60kVA). Customers requesting business and larger scale connections are required to pay an acceptance charge.

Unfortunately, our commercial and business acceptance charges are fixed cost. This is because the charge is essentially bespoke to the connection in your quotation. Not all connections are the same and as such, the costs for preparing a quotation can vary. Our acceptance charges recover the costs for our design and assessment work to produce the quotation, but also cover the costs for the next steps to prepare for your connection.

For customers requesting domestic connection services, we can arrange staged payments where the connection offer is greater than £20,000 (excluding VAT). Where the cost is lower than £20,000 we can consider staged payments but generally they would only be granted in exceptional circumstances.

Staged payments:

• staggered in a way that ensures that we are able to cover the costs of design and connection work before it's completed
• assessment and design charges are non-refundable costs to cover our checks on the network before your connection is complete. Wayleave and legal charges also cover checks and land owner negotiations, which are non-refundable should you cancel.

Commercial connections:

• charges for plan items are influenced by your build programme, which you will need to share with us when you apply alongside the manufacturer's payment schedule
• staged payment milestones are negotiated when the quotation is accepted
• acceptance costs are non-negotiable
• all costs are subject to VAT.

You can pay via cheque made payable to Electricity North West Limited, or by BACS/CHAPS. For more information, please read our Payment Guidance

You can also pay online using a card if you use our new online application service

The cost of a connection or meter move depends on the size, scale and location of the proposed works.

the size of the connection will dictate the level of work required on site and preparation ahead of the work starting (i.e. permits and consents that are chargeable).

Location also plays a significant role, particularly if you are planning to connect in an urban area or in a remote, rural area again where our network may be operating at a maximum capacity. In these areas your connection may be the trigger for network reinforcement, and a proportion of these costs will be attributed to your quotation. Network reinforcement costs vary across voltage levels, with low voltage reinforcement typically costing less than reinforcement at Extra High Voltage.

We can however guarantee that our quotations are fixed, so there are no hidden surprises. For large scale, commercial connections there may be variable cost elements but these will be indicated on your quotation.

Small scale quotations include:
• excavation, replacement of ground materials and resurfacing
• installation of cable and service termination
• local authority permits for traffic management and road closures.

Business or commercial scale quotations also include:
• design and assessment fees (our time spent to produce your quotation)
• pass through statement of works costs
• site survey costs
• reinforcement costs
• equipment costs.

For domestic customers, there are no acceptance charges to pay. However, all other connection customers will need to pay an acceptance charge.

Acceptance charges cover the costs for our network design and assessment work, as well as the work we need to do immediately after you’ve accepted to plan in the connection.

Your acceptance cost could vary depending on how many applications we receive and how many customers accept our quotations. At times when we produce lots of quotations but only a small proportion accepts them, the costs may be high. However, when we produce fewer quotations and a greater proportion accepts them, the acceptance cost will be lower.

Our quotations are free to request; we don’t charge for the assessment and design studies needed to produce a quotation. Therefore, our costs for producing quotations are spread across all customers who accept a quotation.

For commercial projects, your initial acceptance charge will also include costs for us to undertake preparatory work (but not the physical works) such as cable route planning and marking, liaison with third parties to secure land consents (and other permissions if appropriate).

If you are planning any building work or developments, then you will need to know about the location of our cables, overhead lines or any other electrical equipment located near to where you will be working.

BeforeUDig allows you to request copies of our electricity network plans online and receive them by email from our geographic information system. This means you will have access to our information, 24 hours a day. 

For more information please visit our Line search before you dig page.

For a small scale connections (i.e. 1-4 properties or a single connection under 60kVA) we typically offer a site visit before we provide you with a quote, to make sure we understand your requirements. We offer additional site visits once the quote has been accepted. 

For business connections (five or more properties or a single connection over 60kVA) we usually only carry out site visits after you’ve accepted, to check the site is ready for our contractors to start on site.

For commercial connection schemes, we typically always carry out a site visit following acceptance. Our site visits for Extra High Voltage projects are also to check that the site, or sites are ready to begin work. We may carryout additional site visits during planned stages of the project. Our contractors woudn't usually begin work until the site has been checked first. 

The terms and conditions will vary depending on the scale of the connection you're requested.