Trading Connections is a project designed to analyse connection queues and create a dynamic, publicly accessible tool that visualizes demand, capacity and queue data across all substations within the three UK Power Networks regions. This tool will be made available through the UK Power Networks Open Data Portal and the Connections Portal.
What is the project about?
When a customer receives a connection quote, they are placed at the end of a connections queue. Currently, the UK’s transmission and distribution (T&D) queue exceeds 700 GW, meaning new customers can face years of waiting for their connections to be completed. This challenge is not unique to the UK — it is a global issue.
The visualisation tool aims to address this by helping customers identify areas with available capacity, encouraging them to adjust their plans accordingly. By providing clear, accessible data, the tool is expected to reduce speculative applications and promote more informed decisions. Ultimately, this will help shrink connection queues and improve the efficiency of delivering new connections.
How we’re doing it
The project will develop a visualisation tool to support customers in planning and applying for connections. To ensure the solution meets customer needs, we began with an engagement phase to define requirements, such as identifying the key data customers need to make informed decisions.
Following on from this is the development phase. EA Technology has been selected to build the tool and integrate it into the Connections Portal, while the UK Power Networks Open Data team will create a complementary visualisation for the Open Data Portal.
Development will include testing periods where both internal and external stakeholders will review the tool and provide feedback, which will inform further improvements. Once development is complete, customers will be invited to test the data tools and confirm whether their requirements have been met.
What makes it innovative
The project is innovative as it develops a tool to visualise live demand capacity, a feature not yet available elsewhere in the UK. By offering customers real-time, actionable data on demand capacity and connection queues across all substations, the tool provides valuable insights to support more informed connection planning.
What we’re learning
Through our customer engagement sessions, we’ve gained valuable insight into the challenges customers face when applying for connections. We now understand the types of data that would be most beneficial and how best to present it, ensuring the information is clear, easy to interpret and useful.
Building on this feedback, we are developing a visualisation tool that provides customers with transparent insight into network capacity and demand connection queues. This tool will incorporate the findings from our engagement work to help customers make informed decisions about their connection plans.
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