NIE £30,000 Electricity Connection Charge

Snowflakes

Hi there,

I got a quote from NIE to have the electric connected to a rural site before starting to build.

The took almost a year and the customer service was the worst I have ever encountered.

They said on the phone it would be about £15,000 but when I finally got the written quotation in the post before Xmas it for almost £30,000.

A lot of this is for the extension of an existing 11KV line which involves changing the pole to a 12m stout pole. The quote really does seem astronomical for what is actually involved.

Contestibility is being introduced to the Electricity market in Northern Ireland in 2015. Does anyone know how this works and if it would make a huge difference to the quote I got?

jjd

Not answering your question.. That is very expensive! Have you looked into generating your own power & storing in batteries? Large wind generator? Obviously going to be very costly too but the annual maintenance might be lower than electric bills.
Could be totally wrong, but thought it was worth suggesting.

lol_omg_wtf

I work for a company carrying out just this type of work (contestables for DNO's). I'm more in the field rather than office so prices are not something i could comment on.

A lucrative solution to your problem would be if you have a sizeable amount of land to put in a solar farm. This would require a pole mounted tx to be placed for the substation aux-supply which im sure with some negotiations would then get you a supply foc. + you would have a income for the next 20years. Probably not a ideal solution and depends on lots of factors.
There are some big companies out there who will do all of this at no cost to you. I believe they just pay you ground rent and a percentage for power produced.

Contact a mainland company who do contestable work in the uk and ask how much they would charge?

Snowflakes

Thanks lol omg and jjd.
We did look at generating our own power but the problem is that we just wouldn't have enough land unfortunately.

The only solution we have come up with is to wait until the contestables come in (this is meant to be happening in 2015) and see if we can bring the price down by doing a lot of the contestable work ourselves but I was speaking to someone from the ulster farmers union and they don't think contestability will make a huge difference to connection costs.

There is an existing house quite close to the site and we thought the power could be brought from there but NIE say that it is not possible as wouldn't be strong enough connection to bring to the site.
So instead the quote they have given is for splitting the line and erecting a new transformer.

We have tried to complain but NIE keep saying that we will get a 50% refund if someone in the area connects in the next 5 years. However there is no other planning permissions in the area around the site so there is no chance of this happening.

We are just gutted

alexsewell

That is crazy, but they have the monopoly at the end of the day.
it must be very rural where you are building??

Snowflakes

It's turned into a nightmare for us Alexsewell.

The frustrating part is that it's not that isolated. There's three other houses on the lane and our site is at the end of the lane. The next house to it is about 150 metres away.

We did query NIE on it and why they couldn't bring the power from the nearby houses but they are a law unto themselves. The work involved isn't that huge to get the electric to the site but they say that is the price and it can't be reduced.

alexsewell

well my thoughts would be PV

if you went down PV at least you would get money back with the RHI payments
I wouldn't give anyone 30,000 I would invest it and then at least you will get it back

alexsewell

http://www.impartialreporter.com/news/roundup/articles/2014/10/25/406895-nie-15000-charge-is-corporate-greed-/

check this out, same issue

i wonder how they got on in the end.

Snowflakes

Thanks Alexsewell. Would the pv system run the whole house do you think?
I saw that article about the couple in similar situation. I'm not sure how they got on but judging by NIE's response in the article I'm guessing the couple probably had to just pay up.

alexsewell

i think you are limited to the amount of kw you can put on a house, but if you are building say a farm like building you could put more on.
i had guys from solmatix out with me a few months back and they promise good pay backs be worth giving them a ring, there may be a way round it.

saverbuyer

alexsewell wrote: »

well my thoughts would be PV

if you went down PV at least you would get money back with the RHI payments
I wouldn't give anyone 30,000 I would invest it and then at least you will get it back

You don't get RHI with PV. Only solar thermal.