Do you need a DNO notification for plug-in solar?
Yes, a DNO notification is compulsory. Permission is not the same thing, and most guides confuse the two. Here is the regulation that says so, why an 800 W kit qualifies, and who to tell.
Rules and product details last checked on .
Key takeaways
- You must tell your network operator. You do not need their permission. Almost every guide online collapses these into one thing and gets it wrong.
- The duty is in regulation 22 of the Electricity Safety, Quality and Continuity Regulations 2002, not in the new plug-in solar law.
- Telling them is the condition that removes the need to agree terms with them. Skip the notification and you lose the exemption you were relying on.
- Before or at the time of commissioning, not afterwards. G98 appears to allow 28 days’ grace; the regulation does not, and the regulation wins.
- An 800 W kit draws about 3.5 A, comfortably inside the 16 A limit that makes the simple route available.
- The form you need is normally Form B, published by your own operator.
Yes, you have to tell them. But you do not have to ask them, and you do not have to wait for an answer. Those are different things, and the difference is the whole substance of this page.
The rule is not in the new plug-in solar legislation. It sits in regulation 22 of the Electricity Safety, Quality and Continuity Regulations 2002, which governs anything that generates electricity in parallel with the distribution network. It has applied to rooftop solar for years. It now applies to the panel on your balcony.
What regulation 22 actually says
The regulation is in two halves, and reading only the first half is how people get this wrong.
The first half sets the demanding version. Nobody may install or operate a source of energy connected in parallel with a distributor’s network unless they have appropriate equipment to prevent danger, have appropriate personnel and procedures, comply with the applicable standard, and:
(d) agrees specific requirements with the distributor who owns or operates the network.
Agreeing specific requirements with a network operator is a real process. If that were the whole rule, plug-in solar would be impractical for a renter.
The second half removes most of it. Regulation 22(2) says that sub-paragraphs (b) and (d) do not apply, provided the equipment and standards conditions are met and:
(a) the source of energy does not produce an electrical output exceeding 16 amperes per phase at low voltage; (b) the source of energy is configured to disconnect itself electrically from the parallel connection when the distributor’s equipment disconnects the supply of electricity to the person’s installation; and (c) the person installing the source of energy ensures that the distributor is advised of the intention to use the source of energy in parallel with the network before, or at the time of, commissioning the source.
Read condition (c) again. The notification is not a separate courtesy. It is one of the three conditions on which your exemption from condition (d) depends. If you do not advise the distributor, you do not qualify for the simple route, and you fall back to having to agree specific requirements with them.
That is why “no permission needed” is only half true, and why the half that gets left out is the half that creates an obligation.
Why an 800 W kit qualifies for the simple route
Condition (a) caps the simple route at 16 amperes per phase. A plug-in kit is capped by law at 800 watts of AC output, so the comparison is easy to make.
UK mains voltage is nominally 230 V single phase. Current is power divided by voltage:
800 W ÷ 230 V = 3.48 A
That is roughly a fifth of the 16 A ceiling, with a margin of about 4.6 times. Even several kits on the same phase would stay inside it.
Method: nominal single-phase voltage of 230 V, the 800 W figure taken from the statutory definition of a plug-in microgenerator, and a power factor of 1 assumed. Real inverters run marginally below unity power factor, which lowers the current further rather than raising it, so the conclusion does not change.
Condition (b), automatic disconnection when the grid goes down, is a function of the microinverter rather than something you do. Any kit certified as a complete package to the UK specification has to provide it. This is one of several reasons a certified package matters, which we cover in our guide to whether plug-in solar is legal.
Where G98 comes in
Regulation 22 creates the duty. It does not tell you what form to fill in.
That part is handled by the electricity industry’s own engineering recommendation, known as G98, which covers the connection of small generators running in parallel with the public network. In practice, G98 is the process through which the notification required by regulation 22(2)(c) is actually made, and network operators publish G98 forms for exactly this purpose.
Two things worth being clear about, because they are routinely muddled:
- G98 is an industry standard, not law. The legal duty is in regulation 22. G98 is the mechanism the industry built to discharge it.
- G98 has a “connect and notify” route for small installations, which is the route that matches the exemption above. It is a notification, not an application.
G98 is titled Requirements for the connection of Fully Type Tested Micro-generators (up to and including 16 A per phase). Two things follow from that title alone.
Sixteen amperes per phase is the same threshold as regulation 22(2)(a). At 230 V that is 3.68 kW, so G98 and the regulation are drawing the same line in different units. Above it, the heavier G99 process applies instead. An 800 W plug-in kit is nowhere near either boundary.
“Fully Type Tested” is not a marketing phrase. Under G98 the manufacturer has to register the system reference in the ENA’s type test register, and the network operator cannot authorise the connection of a micro-generator that does not comply. This is the practical test of whether a kit is the real thing, and it is a harder test than “sold as plug-and-play”.
G98 also contains the paperwork: Form A for a connection application, Form B, the installation document, which is the one a domestic plug-in kit needs, Form C for type test verification, and Form D for decommissioning.
What we can confirm from a primary source is its scope. The government’s own Plug-in Solar Device Interim Product Specification, version 2.0, published by the Department for Energy Security and Net Zero in July 2026, states in a footnote that G98 applies to Great Britain only, and that in Northern Ireland connection requirements are set out separately by Engineering Recommendation G98/NI. The same footnote adds that applying the specification to Northern Ireland “is subject to further consideration and may require amendment”.
Who to tell, and how to find them
Your network operator is not your energy supplier. Switching supplier does not change it. It is determined by where you live, and there are six operators across Great Britain plus one in Northern Ireland. The same ENA guide notes that Northern Ireland “has different connection arrangements, for example different versions of Engineering Recommendations G98 and G99 are in use”, which is the third independent source we have found saying so.
The reliable way to identify yours is not a postcode tool but your own bill. The first two digits of your MPAN, the 21-digit supply number printed in a grid on your electricity bill, are the distributor ID.
| MPAN starts | Network operator |
|---|---|
| 10, 12, 19 | UK Power Networks |
| 11, 14, 21, 22 | National Grid Electricity Distribution |
| 13, 18 | SP Energy Networks |
| 15, 23 | Northern Powergrid |
| 16 | Electricity North West |
| 17, 20 | Scottish and Southern Electricity Networks |
Mapping cross-checked against EDF’s published distributor look-up table, retrieved 11 August 2026. Confirm against your own bill before relying on it.
If you are in Northern Ireland, your operator is NIE Networks, and the position there is genuinely different, in two ways that reinforce each other.
Regulation 3 of the 2026 plug-in solar instrument, the part that amends these very regulations, extends to England, Wales and Scotland only. And the connection standard is not G98 but G98/NI, confirmed in the government’s own product specification. Northern Ireland readers should treat this page as background and check directly with NIE Networks.
When to tell them, and why the 28 days is a trap
Regulation 22(2)(c) is specific: before, or at the time of, commissioning the source. Commissioning means putting it into service. Tell them before you plug it in, or as you plug it in.
Here is where it gets interesting, and where we disagree with the comfortable reading.
The industry’s own guidance says the opposite. The Energy Networks Association summarises the whole process as “fit and inform”, and its current Distributed Generation Connection Guide: G98 & G99, version 3.0 of March 2026, tells the reader that the installer must submit the installation commissioning confirmation within 28 days of commissioning. Its earlier summary guide put it even more bluntly: you do not need to talk to your operator before the equipment is up and running.
We checked the current edition specifically to see whether this had been tightened ahead of the plug-in solar change. It has not. So we have a trade body telling people to notify afterwards, and a statutory instrument requiring notification before or at commissioning, side by side in August 2026.
Two readings are possible, and we will not pretend otherwise. One is that G98 compliance is itself the “specific requirements” the operator has published, so following it satisfies regulation 22(1)(d) and the timing question falls away. The other is that the 28-day route simply does not meet regulation 22(2)(c), and anyone relying on it is outside the exemption. We have not found either reading resolved in a source we can cite.
There is also a gap the guidance does not anticipate. Every part of the G98 process assumes a professional. The 2026 guide opens the sequence with “find an installer”, requires that installation be carried out by someone competent with recognised qualifications, and has the installer notify the operator, declare the installation and state their own accreditation. The ENA’s Connect Direct portal is described as having installers as its primary users.
A person plugging a certified kit into their own socket has none of that. The regulation is drafted more usefully here, placing the duty on “the person installing the source of energy”, which is you. This mismatch between a framework built for tradespeople and a product designed for tenants is, we think, the most under-discussed thing about the whole change.
One more consequence worth knowing. The same guide warns that changes to EREC G98 can invalidate a micro-generator’s existing Fully Type Tested status, and that manufacturers then have to resubmit devices to the ENA for reassessment. A kit type tested before the plug-in solar rules were written is not automatically covered by them.
So the safe answer is the stricter one. Notify before or at commissioning. It costs nothing, it is what the regulation says, and it removes the question entirely. The 28-day route may well be defensible for an accredited installer discharging G98 on a rooftop system. It is not the wording of the regulation, and there is no upside in testing it.
There is no waiting period written into the regulation, and no requirement to receive a response before you commission. The duty is to ensure the operator is advised. That is a lower bar than asking permission, and a higher bar than doing nothing.
The form for your operator
Every operator publishes its own G98 paperwork. For a single domestic installation the relevant document is normally Form B.
| Operator | Where to go |
|---|---|
| UK Power Networks | Distributed energy resources and generation |
| National Grid Electricity Distribution | Micro generation, single G98 |
| SP Energy Networks | Single G98 generator connections |
| Northern Powergrid | G98 Form B |
| Electricity North West | Micro-generation and storage connections |
| Scottish and Southern Electricity Networks | G98 and G99 requirement documents |
Links checked manually in a browser on 11 August 2026. Several operators block automated link checking, so these could not be re-verified programmatically. If one has moved, search the operator’s own site for “G98 Form B”.
What we have verified, and what we have not
Verified against the primary source. The full text of regulation 22 as currently in force, including both the demanding route and the exemption, the three conditions attached to that exemption, the 16 A threshold, and the timing requirement. All quoted above from legislation.gov.uk.
Calculated, with the method stated. The 3.48 A figure and its relationship to the 16 A ceiling.
Cross-checked against a secondary source. The MPAN distributor ID mapping, from EDF’s published table. It is a supplier’s reference document rather than legislation, so treat it as a shortcut and confirm against your bill.
Read. The ENA’s Distributed Generation Connection Guide: G98 & G99, version 3.0 of March 2026, which is the current edition, along with its 2020 summary guide and EREC G98 Issue 1 Amendment 7. The 28-day provision, the “fit and inform” framing and the installer assumption are all present in the current edition, not just the older ones.
Not read. The normative text of EREC G98 itself in its latest issue. The guides describe it; they are not it. If a detail of the standard is load-bearing for you, get the standard.
Not resolved by anyone we can cite. Whether following G98’s 28-day route satisfies regulation 22, or falls outside the exemption. We have set out both readings rather than picking the convenient one.
The ENA documents were opened manually in a browser on 11 August 2026; the association’s site blocks automated checking.
Our editorial policy explains how we handle this kind of gap.
This page carries the date it was last checked. If an operator’s process has changed, or you think we have read the regulation wrongly, tell us and we will check it against the source and update the date.