Podcast: NESO’s essentials for Gate 2 evidence success, with Matt Vickers Director of Connections Reform

00:00:14 – Pete Aston

Welcome to another podcast from Roadnight Taylor. I’m Pete Aston and I’m joined today by my colleague, Kyle Murchie, and we’re also very excited to be joined by Matt Vickers from NESO. So welcome, Matt nice to have you.

00:00:28 – Matt Vickers

Hello, good to be here.

00:00:31 – Pete Aston

Matt, could you just tell listeners who you are and what your role is within NESO and how that relates to Connections Reform?

00:00:40 – Matt Vickers

Sure, so I’m Matt Vickers. I’ve been at NESO now well as long as anyone else has been at NESO, given that we only came into being what October last year. But in this space, I’ve been working on Connections Reform with NESO and ESO for just over a year. So, my role as Director of Connections Reform was I’ve been looking at the overall shape of what we’re doing – how do we engage with industry, with regulators, with them, with government on this, taking it a lot through the design steps, working with James Norman and team, who are well known figures to you and the listeners to the podcast, and now we’re getting very much into implementation. So, I’ve had that kind of overall view about what we’re trying to do with Connections Reform, and now how do we get into implementation?

00:01:33 – Pete Aston

Thanks, Matt, and I mean it’s fair to say that the whole industry has been sort of living and breathing Connections Reform, you know, in increasing volume over the over the last 18 months as the whole process has worked its way through. What have been some of your highlights I guess in in how that process has pulled its way through so far?

00:01:57 – Matt Vickers

Sure, I think the first thing that strike well, I should have said a little bit about my background before this. So, I actually came from, I used to be the energy ombudsman. So, although I had an energy background, it was much more in the retail and consumer end of things. So, coming in here, I think one of the things that struck me straight away was about just the scale of the ambition, the scale of the challenge that we had with Connections Reform as an industry, because you’re looking at a system that effectively had broken down, you know, if you look at the size of the queue, we’ve got what? About four times the amount of stuff in the queue that we would need for 2030, kind of twice as much as you would need for 2050, and some of the scary things that you’d look at about what was happening with connection dates and about how far out they were going, and just thinking again about that critical role of reform at the centre of whether it’s generation or demand. It’s really all about growth for GB and, you know, the economic and environmental future for all of us.

So, I guess the first thing was just the scale of what is it that we’re trying to do? You know we’re trying to do something hugely ambitious. I think the second thing was then saying well, we’re trying to do something hugely ambitious. I think the second thing was then saying, well, we’re trying to do something hugely ambitious in really really tight timelines, which is because, you know, we’ve had this challenge and it’s fair to say, this challenge has got more acute now, but it’s been coming for a while and we’ve really had to kind of tackle it now. Our time to tackle that challenge is really short. So, trying to do something that’s hugely ambitious in a really short timeline and I guess the other thing is it’s also something that because of the investment, you know, that’s been made in this and the background, the history of how we got here, it’s something that is controversial. So, it was very interesting stepping into this space where you go right. So, I’m doing something that’s hugely ambitious with a really really tight timeline and it’s going to be very controversial as well. So, I found it fascinating wandering around the industry in that pretty much whenever I speak to anyone, you know the builder comes to do your house and they do, a mate of mine calls the reverse whistle, you know you ask them something, they do that that reverse whistle thing. Whenever I’ve said to anyone what my role is, I get that reverse whistle about oh my god, you’re the one doing Connections Reform.

But things that have struck me from the industry point of view, is I think I’ve been really encouraged by one the kind of level of passion and engagement that’s in this. People really want this to work, and I think people really recognise that there’s a there’s a need for this to change. I think it struck me as well about the level of input that’s come. You know, certainly when we’re going through the design phase. I think we ran it was something like 60 different work groups. I know you guys and others many of your listeners were involved in them. Yeah, you’re talking about a significant investment from the industry in collaborating with us to get to get the best possible answer out of this. So that’s kind of struck me as well.

And I think the other thing for me was about if I turn to the network side again, that is similarly about collaboration. We’ve really tried to think through about how to work with networks much better to put customers at the centre of what we’re trying to do, because it’s fair to say we haven’t always done that and there’ll be things that we’re doing, even now, that don’t do that as effectively as we could. But that’s been one of the things I was really keen on, because I myself I come from that kind of as I said before kind of customer service background.

So, yeah, a few observations from me was yeah, collaboration, customer service, ambition, all coming into this space of you know, how do we deal with this in very short order.

00:05:39 – Kyle Murchie

I think it’s a really good point flagging that a lot of effort and a lot of work is now behind us. You know, you’re just thinking over the past year where we’ve come from, you say, with a lot of initial discussions and working groups, etcetera, to where we are now and implementation. You could also argue, though there’s a lot still to come because we’ve only just got to the implementation stage we’re now you know the difficult job is actually still ahead, and so kind of thinking about that of the DNOs have had the opportunity to start collating evidence over the last six weeks or so, and you know we’ve been doing submissions as well on behalf of, you know, supporting clients, and lots of lessons have been learned. So, we touched on a little bit before for the podcast, but maybe you can share some insight into, given the time scales are tight how are you and the team kind of best identifying possible issues, mitigating those issues and engaging?

00:06:38 – Matt Vickers

Sure, I mean, yeah, we might come on in a minute to talk a bit broader about kind of the you know the approach or strategy that we’ve taken. But yeah, I think where you touch on that, you’re quite right. You know we’re now what about five coming up for six weeks in as we record this now into the DNO evidence gathering, and it has been really insightful. So one of the things that we did, you know, to support the applications process, is you’ll have seen the submission evidence handbook and for the first time I think it’s a great example again of where we’ve worked really closely with networks, with the ENA, to produce something that was a really solid piece of guidance that everyone could use. In saying that what we found kind of six weeks in is where we’ve worked with DNOs two things really. One is we’re seeing signs that a lot of the applications are going to be backloaded. So, if you’re saying you know roughly just over half of the way through this kind of evidence gathering period, we’re nothing like at the point where we’ve got half of the projects, we’re quite some way off that; we’re probably more like I don’t know about a quarter of the projects so far. A quarter of developers have submitted evidence. So that’s one thing about you know how do we kind of encourage people to apply early. The other thing that we’ve picked up is, again, despite the things that we tried to do to make the guidance and the handbook as clear as we could and broken down as easily as we could, there’s been early signs about developers have been finding that difficult, you know, because it is. This is an important process, so make no bones about the fact that you know the handbook is. It’s I wouldn’t say it’s the most entertaining read; it can be a bit dry. There’s an awful lot of technical detail in there, you know pages and pages of it, but they have to be because it’s a big thing looking to join the network and making sure that’s in place.

So, the kind of insights that we’ve got earlier. There are some things where, reading it, developers aren’t doing the things that we thought they do, or some things they’re finding harder to fill in than we thought they would, or some bits of evidence you know maybe aren’t as clear as we thought they were. So, there’s lots that we’re doing to kind of make this rather than a one and done piece of a handbook. We’ve been looking at how do we iterate that and how do we build that up through whether it’s frequently asked questions, whether it’s through webinars, whether it’s through updating the guidance documents itself, so that we can make the most out of that. Because you know, as we said before, if it’s a distribution, you’ve got that gathering period is what it’s about eight, nine weeks long. At transmission it’s only three – so at, transmission, we really need people applying early and applying accurately.

00:09:27 – Pete Aston

With those DNO submissions, you said there were some sort of maybe common threads coming through, those where some of the submissions weren’t quite up to scratch. Are there any particular high-level bits from that, that you want to pull out so that those who haven’t yet made submissions can look at those?

00:09:47 – Matt Vickers

Yeah, sure I mean we’ve done some of this. So, if people want to go back, we’ve set up a help centre on our website. So, if people want to go to the NESO website and have a look at the webinars, we’ve done some webinars that walk through this in a bit more detail, including weekly webinars – they’re all on demand now. But I guess probably the two issues that I’d pull out that so far have been clearest is ones around the planning route. So, some customers haven’t realised that you know the planning route is reserved for those who’ve got CPO and DCO planning and they’re ending up submitting town and country or council planning. That that would be an immediate fail on the initial check – so, it’s really important. We’ve got a flow diagram in the handbook; it’s the kind of thing that we’re really important to know; what is it that we want, because it’s a particular route for planning.

00:10:36 – Pete Aston

And that’s like almost the first pass, isn’t it, you know, which of those two routes are you going for your readiness?

00:10:41 – Matt Vickers

Yes.

00:10:42 – Pete Aston

Declaration.

00:10:45 – Kyle Murchie

Yeah, even the portals themselves. You know something that we’ve been asked quite a lot, because you know first thing you get into quite often is the direct declaration, and then into which route you go down land, or planning and for those not as close, they’re thinking oh well, I’ve got planning.

00:10:58 – Matt Vickers

Yes.

00:10:58 – Kyle Murchie

So, it must be the planning approach.

00:11:00 – Matt Vickers

That’s right.

00:11:00 – Kyle Murchie

Rather than having that background.

00:11:03 – Matt Vickers

That’s right.

So, we’re looking to make that that clearer, and I think the other area which is again a land related one that’s jumped out is this about original red line boundaries, which is perhaps not surprising because it is a kind of new concept. There’s a lot of examples and a lot of guidance in the handbook, so we point people to that and again, plugging our, our webinars, there’s a NESO webinar from the 26th of June. If you go and have a look on the website that covers original redline boundaries. I mean, what our DNO colleagues have seen is a lot about customers not stating the installed capacity of the technology, or you know, that the land provided stated in the option agreement it doesn’t match the original red line boundary provided and it’s really important that they match.

I guess the other issue that we’ve seen a bit is about, some projects providing the red line boundary coordinates to six decimal places when you only need to do three, and it’s just some of these things that you know we only consulted on doing three decimal places. That was what was consulted on, agreed. So even if people think, well, it should be more, I want to make it even more precise. No, please, the requirement is three – don’t go beyond. So, it’s, you know, it’s these sorts of things. That’s just in general. It’s really important to read the guidance, follow the flow chart as closely as you can and if you’ve got queries or there’s things you’re not sure of, we can perhaps come on to that. But there’s a range of other ways that we can help that ourselves and our network colleagues have been looking to help and support through the process.

00:12:37 – Kyle Murchie

Just before we get on to that, if I may, can we go back to one point you mentioned, obviously, was the fact that the transmission evidence window is only open for three weeks.

00:12:46 – Matt Vickers

Yes.

00:12:47 – Kyle Murchie

And you flagged where we are at six weeks into the process for DNOs. So, what kind of strategic thinking has been going on? What kind of mitigations are in place? You know if, if we’re sitting here in a couple of weeks time and you find actually you’ve still only got 25% of the submissions made, obviously I know we don’t want to be in that situation, but it’s just trying to understand what’s what you and the team are thinking at the moment?

00:13:15 – Matt Vickers

Yeah, sure, I mean, look, we’re doing a lot, getting out and about doing things like this. So how can we reach out to people and, you know, make it, just underline the importance about early submission, so there’s a big kind of campaign that we’re doing, whether that’s going and speaking at events or what we’ve done with kind of revamping our own website, anything that can kind of get that, footfall, so to speak, there, so that we know that we can get out there with that message. There’s some other things that we’ve done to incentivise early application. So, again, because we’ve only got a very short time window to turn things around, because it has to be to meet the targets that we need, you know, for the Clean Power 2030 plan to meet, what we’ve agreed is this industry plan. We’ve said that for anyone who does submit at transmission in the first two weeks, they’re going to have two working days to be able to come back. If they get rejected on initial checks, they’ll have two working days to address it, whereas those who apply in the last week, they’ll only have one, and that really is being driven by, as you can imagine, you’re talking at transmission; what about 3,000 projects that we’ve got to take through for initial checks. And then, of course, once the initial checks have been done, then there’s going to be that stage of reordering the queue. So, for us, the sooner we can get those in, the better.

So, I guess really a lot of our strategy is about we’re asking developers to help us, to help you. The earlier that people come in, the more accurate they are in following the guidance. And then you know, taking advantage of the webinars and the different things that are out there, the better, because you know, I think most people now the advantage is, most people have known for quite some time that reform was coming. You know it really is right here now – so, everyone should know that there’s a evidence window and this is an important step. But, as you say, it’s so much easier for us to keep to the timelines that we want to stick to if we get those early applications and those accurate applications.

00:15:20 – Pete Aston

In terms of the portal, then. So, we’re recording this on the 30th of June, so the portal opens, I think, a week tomorrow, one minute past midnight on the…

00:15:32 – Matt Vickers

That’s right.

00:15:33 – Pete Aston

8^th of July.

Is there any, and obviously there’s a sort of spreadsheet that’s out there that’s effectively like a replica of what questions and so on are going to be asked in the portal and all the evidence handbook steps you through all the steps that will be in the portal. Is there going to be any opportunity between now and when the portal actually opens for customers, users, to see what the portal is going to look like? Is there going to be any walkthrough of that?

00:16:06 – Matt Vickers

I mean, we are going to plan on doing a walkthrough. I need to check exactly where we’d be doing that with the webinar. But we’ve done some walkthroughs of things, like you know, the evidence submission handbook. So, I think a walkthrough of the portal is a great idea. But, yeah, we’re not in a place where we can kind of launch a test environment, or something like that available for people to have a go. But, you know, we’re making sure, as far as we can, that everything that we’ve said in the handbook is what’s reflected in the portal, so that people, you know, know exactly what it is that they need to do and what goes in which fields.

00:16:46 – Kyle Murchie

So, just to confirm, when the portal is initially released, that’s likely to be the first day will be from the 8th effectively there won’t be an opportunity.

00:16:56 – Matt Vickers

Correct. No, we’re not, we’re not going to have a kind of dummy portal or anything like that that people can go in before.

00:17:01 – Kyle Murchie

Before submission.

00:17:02 – Matt Vickers

No, we’re looking at the portal going live on the 8th. There’s a couple of things that we’re updating before then. So we’re hoping on the 7th we’re planning to do capturing anything else that we’ve got, any other feedback that we have from what was the experience distribution, anything else that we’ve picked up from the FAQs, because the other thing that we are doing is, we are making sure that as projects are coming in, as developers are coming in and saying I don’t quite get this on the system or don’t quite understand how this is going to work, we’re making sure that doesn’t just benefit the developer who raised it, the project who raises it; we’re putting all of that into our FAQs. So, again, it’s worth you know, even if you’ve been on a website and you think that you know what it looks like, we’re updating that weekly with fresh FAQs – so, it’s well worth having a look. And 7th of July will be our kind of last pre-window dump of here’s everything that we’ve got, but we are planning again on running webinars through the window. So, if we’re picking up things through the window, that says actually in week one, we’ve seen this area looks a concern, that area’s a worry; here’s some more FAQs again, we will be running that through the window.

00:18:18 – Pete Aston

And so, one of the things that you’ve done as NESO in terms of trying to help yourself to process everything is go to a slightly different communication approach recently. Do you want to talk us through what that is and how that’s working? In terms of trying to help you manage everything that’s going on at the moment.

00:18:40 – Matt Vickers

Sure, I mean it does come back to that kind of mantra about it is it is helping us, but it is because this is all you know, help us to help you type stuff. So what we’ve done there is we’ve said, rather than having, so that we can allow the contract managers, to you know, to concentrate on getting ready for change and to think about some of the things that need doing as we start getting into reordering and so on, we’ve changed the way that you contact us. So, in effect, the way that you contact us at the moment now two routes. One is via the portal. So again, as an aside, really important to make sure that your data is correct in the portal. So, you know, we’ve done a lot of work on this, but please do make sure that your contact details and so on are correct on the portal. So portal is one route, and the other one is we’ve got a dot box, so the Connections Reform dot box at NESO. So, the idea of that was a couple of things really. One is, if we get communications in through that route, it’s much more efficient because we can then make sure that you’re not dependent on a particular CCM for a query or a response. It means we’ve got a team who can support that and again we’ve gone and invested a bit in some outsourcing to support us with that, to help. But the other reason why that’s really important is it means that we can pick up on what I talked about before – the FAQs. So because we’ve got a kind of concentrated way of seeing that, where everything comes into the same place, we can pick up that picture much more clearly about what is it that people are finding difficult and we can really pull out the insights from that and make sure that the FAQs and the guidance is submitted is updated quicker and better than you could if you tried to run it through all of the CCMs.

I think the last point on it as well, about what we’re trying to do, was we wanted to make sure because you know again, as many of your listeners I’m sure will do themselves, it’s fair to say that usually it’s not just the CCMs who people try and contact at NESO. They’ll contact me, they’ll try and contact James, they’ll contact Fintan, they’ll contact Kit, they’ll contact Claire. They go all over the place trying to contact and actually that makes it operationally really difficult to do. So, bringing that all under one roof is a better way of doing it, but as well, it really is that fairness point.

It’s so important that, whoever you are through this process, everyone gets the benefits of any of the insights through the process and there are no kind of you know, backdoor routes in or no fear or favour for anyone who’s coming in. So, no matter what size of project you are, whether you are part of portfolio or whatever, we know then that you’re going to get that kind of fair, consistent approach to how you’re doing it. So, you know that that’s what we’ve been, that’s the principles we’ve been trying to bring into the customer handling.

00:21:40 – Kyle Murchie

So it’s really good we’re discussing this now because, just last week actually, we had a working group meeting with one of the trade bodies and their members and this topic was, I think, tabled for about 15-20 minutes and an hour and a half later we were still discussing it and I think it’s understood, obviously, the reasons that you’ve just outlined there of why it was initially triggered and I think the points maybe kind of discuss the kind of key points where maybe one is time scale and the enduring impact, you know, is this short term, is it enduring beyond the 29th of July? And the other is, I suppose, the breadth. You know one kind of comment, okay, one area of focus was around your projects that are very much in delivery, yeah, engaging with the TO and normally the CAM. You know, if the CAMs, though ultimately, you’re rightly as per your approach, kind of removing themselves from that session, is that practical? Is that an unintended consequence, and those are supposed to be the kind of key two, and then the third, as well as around, you mentioned about having contact details, but I think for the larger businesses, you know, there’s limitations on how many I mean logins you can have for the, for the portal. So those that are possibly more involved, asking the questions from a strategic point of view, might not actually have access to the portal directly. It would be through their, their teams. So, I think, just again, logistically, that’s why it can be resolved. It’s just time scales are obviously tight. So, yeah, it’d be good to know.

00:23:18 – Matt Vickers

I think that’s fair, Kyle, I think that’s fair that you know, as we’ve looked at this in the first couple of weeks, have we got everything right about how we put that in? No, we haven’t. So, you know, there are some things that we’re doing to look at how we improve that, because I guess, to kind of take your points in order about, do we see, this is enduring. No, at some point, once we get through, I don’t think it’ll be, you know, immediately as soon as, the window closes, I think it’s more likely to be. Well, once we’ve got through queue reorder and we get into Gate 2, Gate 1 offers, I think that’ll be the point when we’ll revert back to the way that we worked before. So, we’ll be bringing that back in.

To your first point is this going to be the way that we’ll work from now on, forever and today? No, it’s a particular plan about how we get through what’s going to be a very, very busy period. So that’s the first point on that.

I think. The second point about, particularly if you’re talking to networks, about how do we make sure that they’re then able to, well, both they are, and anyone who’s got a project, let’s say, connecting in, like you know, this year, or 26 or 27 where you need quick answers, again, the idea is we’re putting all of those through the same channels but in the background what we’ve got is it’s triaged. So, the idea of this is that we will triage out very quickly and point out where necessary to the right people you know, back into an account manager if there is something where they’re needing to deal with something right now. Because I guess what we were seeing is there are some people where there’s lots and lots of queries about, you know well what’s happening with my securities when I’m connecting in 2035 or something, and right now, with everything we’ve got going on, that is not best will in the world, that’s not a kind of high value question for it; it is if you’re the individual developer, but in the grand scheme of things, that’s not the sort of thing we should be focusing on. So, we’re going to be doing a lot more to make it clear about the focus is on saying what are we doing with those projects that really need to keep moving right now? How do we triage those and get those back out and answered with quicker. Because that, to be honest, is I think the bit that we’ve struggled with in the first couple of weeks. As we’ve set it up, some teething troubles around that because, quite right, you know, I do hear and recognize that feedback that says there’s projects that do need to be developing right now. Our point is there’s others that don’t, there’s others that where the queries can wait until it’s clear about – have you got a Gate 1? Have you got a Gate 2 offer? Because, you know, our focus is we, as we said at the start, we’re trying to do something really ambitious in really short timelines. So, we’ve got to be, got to put our resources and put our focus where we need to get the most important, you know, most pressing offers out as soon as we can.

00:26:09 – Kyle Murchie

So, to listeners out there that are in that situation, can you explain how that triaging is working and will they be contacted directly?

00:26:18 – Matt Vickers

Yeah, I mean look everyone will end up with. So, anyone who is coming through the portal or anyone who is coming through the dot box. So, to your point about portal logins, we see that, but you can always come in through the dot box, so you can come in that way if, for whatever reason, you can’t log on to portal. We are doing, everyone will get an individual answer. It’s just, in some cases the individual answer might be look, your question is one that we will deal with once we’re out the other side of having done queue reordering if it’s way off out into the future. But the idea of it is that if anyone’s raising particular queries, they get something that comes back and says this is the answer. But as well, what we’re doing is building that answer, not the specifics, again, for all the commercial reasons, but we’re pulling the generic points out of that, making sure that makes its way to the FAQs and so on. So, in short, everyone will get individual answers – you do get an individual response. It’s not going into a black hole, although it’s probably felt for some people these first two weeks like it is, and we’ve recognised that we yeah, we’re doing something about it.

00:27:28 – Pete Aston

From NESO’s point of view, what do you think success looks like, like by the end of July, and what do you think success looks like in, you know, in terms of the Connection Reform process, sort of by the end of this year a couple of days? Obviously there’s a really short time horizon and then that sort of longer time horizon.

00:27:31 –  Matt Vickers

Yeah, I think, by the end of July it’s really important that you know, success really is both at distribution and transmission. Have we managed to capture the evidence that we’re going to need in a fair and consistent way, the evidence that we’re going to need to do that queue reordering exercise really well? That’s probably the most straightforward answer is, you know, have we set ourselves up in the foundation where we can now do the queue reordering the way that we need to? And I’d say, if you’re taking it a bit longer and you started to look at well by, because, of course, the, you know, the main thing that we’re looking at in particular is this focus on what’s the projects that we need for 2030. So, we’ve said that all of the projects that transmission that are needed for 2030, we’re aiming to get those out by the end of December 25 and all of those at distribution by the end of January. So that that’s one of the other things is what success looks like is we’ve got those offers out. I think, if you were looking more broadly, though, there’s a few really significant things that I’d want to see us having done by the end of the year.

One is in that process, how have we made sure that, where we can, we’ve kept investor confidence as high as we can? We understand that, you know, going through a period of change, when something’s in flight, it brings uncertainty and that is one of the reasons why we’re working to you know, because some people might say why are you doing a three-week timeline? You’re making things really difficult for you, why are you trying to do all this that fast? In part, it is to deal with that question of investor confidence. We know that there’s something of a you know the balls in flight at the moment, the sooner we can safely land it, the better. So, there will be a big part about in particular, how have we managed to get some of those projects that were needed you know, 26, 27 projected dates, getting those out.

I think another one that we would want to think about, it’s really important by the end of the year that we’re in a position where we can reopen because at the moment, effectively, we’re on a pause, aren’t we for generation and demand. We want to be able to get to a point where we can reopen that and get those generation and demand projects in.

And I think, looking a bit further out, you know there are some other big strategic points about, ideally, what we’ve done here, is to try and get a viable set of projects that will deliver that Clean Power Plan. So that’s obviously one of the things that we’re wanting to look at is to say, have the projects come through where they’re needed? And have we got a really clear picture of some of the technologies where there is still scope for investments, where there is still scope for growth? Because again, that’s really a big part of what we’re trying to do with this for investors is to create that climate that says it’s really clear so that we can get the investment behind the particular both geographic mix and technological mix that we need for GB for the future.

And I guess the last point would be it’s important that we’ve taken the industry with us and that we’ve done that, you know we’ve still got the confidence of industry as we then start thinking into the future about some of the questions like strategic demand. You know we’ve got big challenges up ahead with the rise of data centres. We’ve got more things with some of NESO’s other functions around spatial energy planning and how we really make sure all of that comes together as a cohesive, coherent plan that creates the right climate for investment and for growth.

00:31:27 – Pete Answer

That’s great, I enjoyed the answer. Thank you for that, Matt. Maybe we should schedule another podcast in like this in six months’ time

00:31:30 – Matt Vickers

That would be very cool.

00:31:31 – Pete Aston

Let’s see, let’s see where we got to where we are, how we got to…

00:31:41 – Matt Vickers

End of term reports, that’s it.

00:31:48 – Pete Aston

I guess it feels like we’re drawing to a close on this. Maybe it was just worth reflecting back on what would you really like to be developers to be doing this week. You know, there’s a week till the portal opens. What would you really like them to be doing?

00:32:08 – Matt Vickers

Sure, I think, immerse themselves as far as they can in all of the support materials that are out there – there’s a lot. You know we’ve got a help centre on our website. I know there’s the great evidence submission handbook which you built with networks. If you’re at distribution, there’s some great seminars and events that distribution colleagues are holding as well. So, I would say first thing is, take advantage of all of the tools and the guidance that’s out there. Really immerse yourself in it, because we’re trying to do our best to help. The other one would be get yourself in a position to apply early, particularly for those who are applying where they’ve got a portfolio. The temptation might be, you know well, let’s wait for the last one in the portfolio or let’s push this towards the end. You’re going to give yourself more time to be able to deal with anything. If there are issues, initial checks, if you put those in in that first two weeks of the window, so you know from the 8th to what’s that can’t do my maths fast enough. Shouldn’t have done that, should I. 22nd, I think. So, you know, anyone who manages to get in before the 22nd of July you’re going to have a longer time, that extra working day, to deal with anything.

So, I’d say, get yourself set up for that, get yourself in a position to do that and, yeah, familiarise yourself as far as you can with the process, with the questions, and if you need help, it’s there. You know, we have got a lot of things that are there on demand, but that’s the reason why we’ve still kept these channels open through the portal and through the dot box. So, if you really are stuck, you know, do approach us, because we’re doing our best to get back to people as quickly as we can, because we want as many viable projects as we can. That’s going to help us get to that bright, sunlit, sunlit upland future that you know we’re talking about, about what’s, where can we get to for Clean Power, for GB for 2030 – that’s what it’s all about.

00:33:54 – Kyle Murchie

So, the last one for me, then, just picking up on that last point, because a lot of listeners will be really keen on it. So, if you are sitting there thinking I’ve done quite a lot of immersing myself on all the detail, I think there’s a gap and there’s a really good, you know really quite specific question relating to a project. Yeah, the best route is get that query submitted into the portal and, or the dot box, and you will be contacted.

00:34:19 – Matt Vickers

Absolutely, it will contact and what you’ll get, is you will get an answer back to you that says this is your answer and you’ll see it will then get uploaded, none of your commercial details, but it will also get uploaded then to the FAQs and, if necessary, the guidance. So, the idea is, you know, rising tide lifts all of us, so the more of these queries we get, the more that we can deal with quickly. That’s why we’re centralising everything, the better quality of guidance and advice we can give. So, yes, anyone sat there with a query, do, you know, come forward, because if you’ve spotted a gap, we want to help close that because it will benefit all of us.

00:34:55 – Pete Aston

Matt, thank you so much. It’s been really great to talk with you, and you know the whole process has just been immense in the real sense of that world. And yeah, we wish sort of all of NESO the best over the next few weeks. It’s going to be manic for you, I’m quite sure. But yeah, and we thank you so much to everyone for listening as well, and we do hope you join us for the next podcast. So, from us, thanks and goodbye.

00:35:27 – Kyle Murchie and Matt Vickers

Thanks everyone.

00:35:28 – Pete Aston

Thanks, bye-bye.