A surface and planning check
Whether the rules cover your wall or roof.
Read this oneWho your operator is
The East Midlands is one licence area. The operator on record for it is National Grid Electricity Distribution (East Midlands) plc. Some older documents still call the same company Western Power Distribution, which was the name until 2022, so do not take that as a sign the answer is wrong.
Treat this as our working answer. Check it with the operator's own postcode tool first, because licence boundaries and county boundaries are not the same lines.
How to check it yourself
Dial 105. There is no charge, it answers from any postcode in England, Scotland and Wales, and it connects you to whichever company owns the cables in your street. That beats reading a map, and it is right everywhere.
What the form asks for
It is a short online form and the government describes it as taking about five to ten minutes. You give your name, your email address and the address where the device was installed, within 28 days of installing it. The guidance that comes with a compliant device is meant to point you at it.
We sit with you while you send it, so nothing about it comes as a surprise later.
Why it is one per household
One device per final ring circuit is what the product specification permits, and it then points at the network rules on top of that. Those rules, in Engineering Recommendation G98 Issue 2 Amendment 1, hold a household to a single device, and that stands until the recommendation is amended. Ofgem signed the change off on 11 August 2026 and it took effect on 27 August with everything else.
Questions about the notification
What happens if I do not tell them?
The 28 day notification is described in the government's impact assessment as what a consumer is asked to do, so we word it that way rather than as a penalty. We would still send it. It is a few minutes and it keeps the record straight.
Do I have to tell my energy supplier as well?
The notification described in the assessment goes to the distribution network operator, which is the company that owns the wires, not your supplier. They are different companies and the form is the operator's.
I live in a flat. Is it the same?
The notification is the same. What is different is consent: you may need your freeholder or the building management to agree first, and the wooden wall and balcony rule applies to blocks of flats as well as houses.
Elsewhere on this site
On this page
Not sure how it applies to your house?
A postcode and the name of the material is enough for us to start.
Send a postcode