Grid connection delays: Great British Grid announced, and a plan to let businesses build their own

If a job of yours has ever sat finished bar the power, grid connection delays are the part of this week’s energy news worth knowing. The government plans to let more developers and businesses build their own connections, where appropriate.

It came with a new publicly owned body. The Department for Energy Security and Net Zero and Great British Energy announced Great British Grid on 29 September 2026. It will sit inside Great British Energy, which is a lot of Great British for one press release, and its job is to get more of the network built, faster.

What’s missing is the part you’d need. There’s no start date for the new body and no timetable for the self-build change. Nothing has been published yet on which connections or which contractors will qualify, or on how this fits with last week’s separate grid connection route for IDNO customers.

So nothing moves on your programme this week. When a connection holds up handover, getting paid on time waits with it, and the announcement doesn’t change the date the network company gave you.

Grid connection self-build could let you skip part of the wait

Self-build means the developer or business arranges the connection work itself instead of queuing for the network company. The government says widening it will help reduce delays, lower costs and speed up growth.

The words “where appropriate” matter. This is a future reform, not a permission every business can use tomorrow. Whether it reaches your customer’s project depends on eligibility rules that don’t exist yet.

The government points to Ireland, where it says similar reforms cut connection times by up to 11 months. That’s a precedent it chose to quote, not a forecast for a job in Britain. It hasn’t put a number on what the change will save here, either in time or on bills.

The government says it is already working with NESO and Ofgem to overhaul the connections queue, including removing more than 300 GW of speculative capacity. That reform was under way before Great British Grid was announced.

Your network operator stays the same

The rest of the announcement is about who owns and funds the big network projects. Great British Grid will invest public money alongside private investors in network infrastructure. The government will also speed up competitive tendering for transmission projects, with Great British Grid among those allowed to bid.

For you, the useful line is that the role of existing network operators is unchanged. Your DNO stays your DNO, and Ofgem still regulates it. Start-up costs come from Great British Energy’s existing budgets, with the long-term money left to a future spending review.

A connection isn’t the only sign-off that can hold a finished job. If you’re already tracking building control sign-off for the trades on the same project, the power date belongs on that list too.

When the self-build rules are published, the question for you is simple: is your kind of connection on the list, and who’s allowed to do the work. Until then, price and schedule the job on the date you have, and keep the gap between finishing and cash in the bank in view.