Electricity North West has one of the least modern G98 processes in Great Britain and, oddly, one of the most helpful. There is no portal, no account, no online form. You download a PDF, fill it in, and email it to a mailbox named for the job.
And then it hands you something most operators do not: a guide walking through the form field by field.
That trade — no automation, but real documentation — turns out to suit plug-in solar rather well. The awkward part of notifying is never the submission. It is knowing what the questions mean.
Is Electricity North West a DNO, and is it yours?
Yes to the first. It is one of fourteen distribution network operators in the UK regulated by Ofgem — one of the DNOs, in the industry’s own shorthand — and it has owned the North West network since buying it from United Utilities in 2007. It serves around five million customers across the region. Most of those UK homes will never have contacted it, because bills and customer service run through suppliers instead.
As for whether it is yours, this is the simplest boundary question of all six operators, because Electricity North West has exactly one licence area — the only one of the six that does. A DNO lookup by postcode at energynetworks.org will confirm it in seconds, and so will the first two digits of your MPAN:
- 16 — North Western England
That covers Cumbria, Lancashire, Greater Manchester and Cheshire. One caveat on Cheshire: parts of it sit with SP Manweb rather than Electricity North West, so if your MPAN starts 13 you want SP Energy Networks instead. And if your postcode check returns National Grid Electricity Distribution, you are south of this network’s boundary and want that operator’s process, which differs — it offers an online form where this one does not.
A note on the name
The route: Form B, by email
Electricity North West is blunt about why you are doing this, and it cites the instrument, which we like:
“If you’re planning to connect generators or storage to our network, you must inform us or complete an application. This is an obligation under the Electricity, Safety, Quality and Continuity Regulations 2002.”
For a single property, the instruction is to complete G98 Form B and return it by email to G98notifications@enwl.co.uk — a mailbox named for the job. It is a small thing that removes a real anxiety, because you are not dropping a statutory notification into a general connections inbox and hoping somebody recognises what it is. SSEN does something similar with its two regional microgeneration addresses, so this is not unique; it is just clearer than most. And it is not strictly single-purpose either — the same page routes Form A to it in one place.
The form itself is a PDF on the Electricity North West site, under its micro-generation pages. There is no online alternative; if you were looking for one, that is why you could not find it.
Form A, which sits next to Form B, is the multiple-premises application. Worth knowing that Electricity North West’s own page gives two different addresses for returning Form A in two places a few lines apart. Form B, the one you need, is unambiguous.
Use their completion guide
This is the reason to notify Electricity North West with more confidence than most.
Alongside Form B, Electricity North West publishes a guide to completing it, walking through the fields in order — “If you require guidance on completing G98 form B, please refer to this helpful guide” — plus a shorter summary guide covering which form applies to what. Neither is hard to find once you know it exists. Neither, as far as we can tell, is linked by anybody writing about G98.
What that guide cannot do is anticipate a device that plugs into a socket, because it was written for wired installations. So three additions for plug-in solar owners:
Registered capacity.Electricity North West states the rule precisely: where the installation includes an inverter, the rating is taken to be the inverter’s continuous steady state rating. So it is the microinverter’s AC output, not the panel wattage. Under the Interim Product Specification a compliant device cannot exceed 800 VA, which puts every compliant plug-in device at 0.8 kW or below on this form, whatever the panels add up to.
Energy storage capacity — there is no such box here.This one is specific to Electricity North West, and worth knowing before you go hunting for it. The Form B that ENWL publishes is an older issue of the ENA template: the footer reads “ENA Engineering Recommendation G98 Issue 1 Amendment 4 2019”, and it has no energy storage capacity field at all. Its columns are Manufacturer, Date of Installation, Technology Type, Manufacturer’s Ref No, Registered Capacity and Power Factor. SSEN, SP Energy Networks and National Grid Electricity Distribution publish the current version, which does have the field. So if you have read elsewhere that you should enter zero for storage, that advice describes a different form from the one in front of you.
None of which changes the underlying point: battery storage within the device is not permitted on the plug-in route, so a compliant device has nothing to declare whether or not the box exists.
The type test reference. It must match the complete kit — panels, inverter, cables, plug and mounting together — rather than the microinverter inside it. That distinction is what lets a seller point at a genuine register entry for a component while the assembled kit has never been assessed, so check what the entry actually covers.
The installer block.ENWL’s guide walks you through the fields, but it cannot solve the one with no answer for a self-installed device. Form B has an Installer Details block asking for accreditation and a signature, and its declaration is headed “to be completed by Installer”.
Our field-by-field walkthrough covers the boxes that are the same for everyone, including that one.
The 28-day deadline, and what it is not
Electricity North West’s own G98 and G99 FAQ document puts it plainly: no later than 28 days after commissioning, a Form B must be submitted. So you must notify your local DNO within 28 days of commissioning, and that is the figure to diarise.
That is yourdeadline. It is not a promise about how quickly Electricity North West will come back to you. It publishes no acknowledgement time, no response standard and no target in working days that we could find, and we are not going to attach a figure to its name that it has not committed to. You will see “five to ten working days” quoted around the internet as though it were a DNO approval standard; it is not Electricity North West’s, and G98 is a notification rather than an approval in any case.
The absence of a G98 record is worth a thought here too. Nobody chases you, and we have found no documented enforcement against a household for failing to notify. But an unrecorded installation is the sort of thing that surfaces awkwardly — when a supplier asks before processing an export application, or when a buyer’s solicitor asks what is connected. The notification process takes a quarter of an hour. Do it and file the confirmation email.
ENWL states a consequence for non-compliance, and it is not a fine
Its own G98 and G99 FAQ says that it will check the validity of the type test information you provide, and that “if we do not believe your Microgeneration to be G[98] compliant then you will be disconnected from the network until full compliance can be determined.”
Read that carefully, because it is about compliance rather than notification. It does not say ENWL disconnects people who fail to notify. It says that where it does not accept a device as G98 compliant, disconnection follows until the position is resolved — and every plug-in solar device on the ENA register is currently marked Non-compliant. That is the sharpest published statement of why the register status matters, and it is a good reason not to notify a device you cannot evidence.
One wording point worth flagging. The FAQ says “the installer must submit a Form B”. For a plug-in solar device there is no installer, and the duty falls on whoever connected the generation — which is you. The phrasing reflects an assumption baked into every operator’s paperwork, not a restriction on who may notify.
Generation and storage, on one form
Electricity North West titles the whole section G98 Micro-Generation and Storage Connections, and handles both on the same route. Convenient, and a useful prompt to be clear about where plug-in solar sits.
A compliant plug-in device contains no storage. If yours does — an EcoFlow STREAM, an Anker Solarbank, a Zendure SolarFlow, a Jackery Navi — it cannot use the plug-in route at all. Those products are not unlawful and not useless; they can be installed conventionally by an electrician. What they cannot do is go into a 13 A socket under SI 2026 No. 848. We have set out exactly what the battery exclusion catches.
G98 vs G99: 16 A, 3.68 kW, and where an 800 VA kit sits
G98 is the engineering recommendation from the Energy Networks Association that governs how small-scale generation connects to the grid. The ENA publishes it; your DNO applies it. Electricity North West states the threshold explicitly: G98 covers all generation installations up to 16 A per phase — single-phase systems up to 3.68 kW, three phase up to 11.04 kW. Anything larger becomes a G99 application, which is a formal submission with a detailed engineering assessment rather than a notification.
A compliant plug-in solar device draws on 3.5 A of that 16 A per phase allowance. G99 will never apply to it, and neither will the larger systems process. If you have been reading about DNO applications for solar panels and wondering which one you need, that is the answer: G98, every time, for this class of device.
The related trap is assuming the spare headroom is yours to use. It is not. IPS version 2 permits one device per final circuit, but its own note records that Engineering Recommendation G98 Issue 2 Amendment 1 2026 restricts this to one device per household until and unless it is amended. Two limits, tighter one wins: one device per household.
Why this is an obligation rather than a courtesy
Mandatory, and the marking says so
G98 is a Great Britain document. Northern Ireland uses G98/NI; the North West is not affected by that distinction.
Frequently asked questions
Is Electricity North West a DNO?
Yes — one of fourteen distribution network operators in the UK, regulated by Ofgem, covering the North West of England. It is not an energy supplier and does not bill you.
What is a G98 or G99 certificate?
Neither produces a certificate in the way the phrase suggests. G98 produces a notification record and, usually, an acknowledgement from the operator. That acknowledgement is what people mean.
How do I fill in the G98 form?
Use Electricity North West’s own Form B completion guide for the general fields, and our walkthrough for the plug-in-specific ones — capacity, storage and the type test reference.
What is the maximum current per phase covered by G98?
16 A. Electricity North West spells out both ends of that: 3.68 kW on a single-phase supply, 11.04 kW on three phase. Domestic supplies in the North West are single phase in all but unusual cases, so 3.68 kW is the number that applies to you.
Can I do my own G98 application?
Yes. Electricity North West’s route is a PDF and an email address, both publicly available, with no account or installer credential required. Of the six operators this is among the most straightforward for a self-installer.
Do I need to notify if I am a renter?
Yes, and you do it yourself. The notification records what is connected at the supply; it does not go to your landlord and does not require their involvement. You will need your MPAN, which is on your electricity bill. See balcony solar for renters.
Does adding a battery require G98 or G99?
Storage sits within the same framework, but a battery-integrated plug-in device is excluded from the plug-in route regardless — that is a product question rather than a form question.
Do I need a DNO application for solar panels in the North West?
For plug-in solar, what you need is a notification rather than an application. People search for “DNO applications” and “application for solar panels” because that is the language installers use for rooftop work; for a device inside G98 limits the G98 DNO notification is the whole of it. Larger solar installations, where you install solar panels on a roof, are a different process.
How long does a DNO application take?
Electricity North West does not publish a figure. It sets a 28-day deadline for you and no response standard for itself, so we cannot tell you how long a DNO application takes here without making something up.
Can I connect without a DNO notification at all?
Not lawfully. Electricity North West cites the Electricity Safety, Quality and Continuity Regulations 2002 as the basis for the obligation, and the device’s own marking will tell you notification is mandatory. Grid stability is the reason the requirement exists — the local network is planned on the basis of what is connected to it.
Do I need a smart meter installed first?
No. A smart meter matters if you later want an export tariff under the SEG, but it is not a precondition for notifying. For an 800 VA device, self-consumption is where the value sits anyway — see balcony solar SEG tariffs.
What should I keep afterwards?
The completed form template you submitted, the confirmation email and reference number if one is issued, the manufacturer’s IPS compliance declaration, and evidence that the complete kit is verified on the register. Keep them with your property documents.
For the standard itself, see our G98 and DNO notification explainer and the shorter balcony solar G98 notification guide.