Grid Connection Offer Review

No matter how good or bad a connection offer looks, the cost of unwittingly rejecting a viable project, or taking forward a ticking timebomb, is too great

ENERGY STORAGE

Where Roadnight Taylor can help

As a developer you can:

  • Spend significantly less on site acquisition

  • Suffer fewer write-offs from abandoned projects

  • Have significantly more projects reach financial close

  • Achieve higher exit valuations

The difference in numbers:

  • More than 100 connection offers reviewed per annum

  • £100k/MW average non-contestable cost savings

  • Project-saving offer rectifications found in 10% of reviews

  • Catastrophic risks identified in 7% of reviews

Project-making opportunities and project-breaking issues can be obscured in the complexity of connection offers.  A specialised, forensic study can reveal them – and make or save you £millions.

Due diligence
Due diligence

Project-making opportunities and project-breaking issues can be obscured in the complexity of connection offers.  A specialised, forensic study can reveal them – and make or save you £millions.

The challenge

  • Nationally, about 15%  HV and EHV generation connection offers are accepted by developers

  • Many flawed but rectifiable connection offers are passed up. This contributes to the circa 85% failure rate of developers’ applications

  • Some critically high-risk offers are accepted in ignorance.  Offers with concealed ticking-timebombs may reveal their catastrophic risk before financial close, before construction… or after

  • Developers and investors take connection offers at face value, assuming:

    • Non-contestable costs can neither increase or decrease
    • Contestable works offer the only cost saving opportunities
    • Curtailment reports are reflective of a likely reality
    • Significant outage risks will have been identified
    • Securities and cancellation charges are obvious and straightforward

The solution

What we do

We identify errors, omissions, missed opportunities, inappropriate application of technical or commercial policies, misinterpretations of regulations, inappropriate assumptions, outage risks, physical risks, securities risks and potential ICP savings

DNO and TO System Planners have neither the time, the resource or the authority to consistently seek and offer you the most technically appropriate and least cost solution for your needs, and identify risks on your behalf.  Some lack the inclination or the necessary expertise to do so

Our connection offer reviews are trusted and valued by a rollcall of the UK’s leading energy developers and funds, whether we have drawn up their connection applications – or their in-house teams have.

Philip Bale

“What I like most about carrying out Connection Offer Reviews is finding something that nearly everyone else would have missed – the obscure solutions to non-contestable costs that others won’t consider, or unearthing hidden issues which save a client from wasting time, effort, resource and cost on a scheme that has irreversible risks. 

Conversely, I love identifying opportunities which make failing schemes fly.  Needless to say, not all schemes will have a success story, but I enjoy the challenge of trying to find those diamonds in the rough.”

Philip Bale
Specialist Connections Engineer, Roadnight Taylor

Who does the work?

Our extraordinary team of Connectologists® have the hands-on technical, commercial and regulatory experience of the highest order – having held responsibility for many thousands of EHV offers and applications.  They are tenacious, diligent, self-assured and professional – and they are on your side.

Pete Aston

Pete Aston
Specialist Connections Engineer

Catherine Cleary

Catherine Cleary
Specialist Connections Engineer

Philip Bale - Roadnight Taylor

Philip Bale
Specialist Connections Engineer

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Some of our current connection offer review projects

  • Gate 2 submissions - a practical guide

Join us for a webinar designed to bring clarity to the Gate 2 submission process for energy project developers and stakeholders. This session will help you understand what’s ahead and how to approach the Gate 2 evidence window with confidence.

  • Top 10 grid connection tips

Getting your project connected to the grid is no easy feat—but what are the most essential tips to maximise success? In our latest podcast, our Connectologists® battle it out to decide the ultimate Top 10 Grid Connection Tips.

  • Grid code change GC0117 podcast

Join our Connectologist as they debate GC0117 the Grid Code change proposal, initially raised back in June 2018, aimed at improving transparency and consistency of access arrangements for generation and storage connections.

  • Podcast: NGED connections team

Join Pete Aston and Nikki Pillinger and special guests Amanda Le Brocq (Director of Connections), Sarah Jeffery and Mark Baker (Heads of Strategic Customer Engagement) from National Grid Electricity Distribution (NGED)

  • Webinar: Last chance to secure your demand grid connection

Data centre, hydrogen electrolyser or industry looking to decarbonise? With the National Energy System Operator set to pause applications for demand connections at transmission, is March your last chance to secure a grid connection offer in 2025?

  • Webinar: Last chance to secure your demand grid connection

Webinar Watch: Critical insights ahead of NESO's 21 March 2025 application deadline for transmission demand connections