UK Power Networks has built a good notification system and then closed it to you.
Its route for small generation is Smart Connect, an automated portal that gives near-instant decisions and replaces the paper ENA forms entirely. It is genuinely better than emailing a Word document into a shared inbox. But the eligibility rule is stated twice on UKPN’s own site, in slightly different words both times, and it is unambiguous: “Only approved installers can use Smart Connect on behalf of customers”, and “Only installers can notify us on behalf of customers.”
Plug-in solar is a product you buy in a shop and plug into a socket. There is no installer. So across three of Britain’s fourteen distribution licence areas — London, the South East and the East of England, which between them cover the densest concentration of flats and rented homes in the country — the published notification route does not have a door marked customer.
That is the honest position, and it is what this page is about.
Why this matters right now
From 27 August 2026, compliant plug-in solar can lawfully be sold and used in Great Britain under SI 2026 No. 848. The Interim Product Specification that comes with it requires every compliant device to carry a permanent marking stating that notification to the network operator, on connection and on disconnection, is mandatory, including a link to instructions on how to do so. Separately — and this gets run together constantly — the information supplied with the device must give clear registration and deregistration guidance including a QR code pointing at it. The marking and the QR code are two different requirements in two different clauses.
So a UKPN-area buyer will unbox a product that tells them, on the casing, to notify. And the route their operator publishes is closed to them.
A closed channel is not an exemption
Is UK Power Networks your operator?
UK Power Networks is a distribution network operator — it owns and runs the electricity network across three licence areas, none of them adjacent to each other in name, which is why people get this wrong. Check the first two digits of the MPAN on your electricity bill:
- 10 — Eastern England
- 12 — London
- 19 — South Eastern England
If your bill shows 20, that is Southern England and you want SSEN instead — an easy slip for anyone near the Hampshire or Berkshire boundary. If it shows 11 or 14, you are with National Grid Electricity Distribution, whose process is markedly more open to householders.
Whoever your bill comes from is irrelevant to this. UK Power Networks is not an energy supplier, does not sell you electricity, and in the ordinary course of things you will never have contacted it.
What Smart Connect is
Smart Connect sits at smartconnect.ukpowernetworks.co.uk and it is UKPN’s own system, not the industry-wide one. Registration is required, and registration is vetted — the Smart Connect portal is for approved installers, and UKPN’s stated reason is that it wants to be sure it receives all the correct information.
It is worth understanding what the installer portal was built for, because it explains the restriction rather than excusing it. Smart Connect handles the whole family of low carbon technologies at once: an electric vehicle charger, solar PV, a battery storage or energy storage system, an electric heat pump, or several together at one supply point. Those are jobs where the installer has to assess whether the existing electricity supply can carry the additional load, and where an insufficient supply means UKPN upgrades the electricity connection before anything is switched on. In that world, routing everything through a vetted installer portal is a sensible bit of net zero plumbing — it puts the person who has seen the cut-out in charge of the paperwork.
Plug-in solar breaks the model. There is no additional load to assess, because the device generates rather than consumes, and there is no installer because the product was designed so that there does not need to be one.
The rules it applies to a domestic job are straightforward and, for our purposes, almost comically generous:
- Notification is due within 28 days of the installation.
- If maximum export after any export limitation is under 5 kW, UKPN automatically approves the application and the installer can proceed.
- It handles properties up to 69 kVA. Anything at 70 kVA or above — a housing estate, a large commercial building, a charging hub — goes to a separate Connections Application Portal for a new electricity connection or an upgrade to an existing connection. That is emphatically not your form.
A compliant plug-in solar device produces at most 800VA. That is roughly a sixth of UKPN’s automatic-approval threshold. There was never a technical question here. The obstacle is the submission channel, not the electricity.
So what do you do if you installed it yourself?
Here is everything we could establish from UKPN’s own website, and then the part we could not.
What UKPN publishes: Smart Connect, restricted to approved installers. Its consumer-facing solar and storage page assumes throughout that you have engaged one — it opens by telling the reader to choose an installer who will handle everything, and states plainly that “Since you won’t be able to do the installation work yourself, the first thing you need to do is choose an installer.” That framing is reasonable for a roof array. It does not describe plug-in solar.
What UKPN does not publish: any consumer-accessible G98 notification route. We looked across its connections pages, its low-carbon technology pages, its help and contact pages, and its own G98 and G99 FAQ document. None of them sets out what a householder does when there is no installer to act for them.
We are not going to fill that gap with a guess. Publishing an email address we have inferred would be worse than useless — it would send people’s notifications into a mailbox that may not be monitored for this, and give them a false record.
The practical advice is therefore duller than we would like: contact UK Power Networks directly and ask. Ask specifically how it wants to receive a G98 notification for a plug-in solar device installed by the householder, and whether it will accept an ENA Form B. Put the question in writing, and keep the reply. If the answer is that it has no process yet, keep that too — a dated record of having asked is a materially better position than silence, and it is the most any of us can do while the simplified route is still being built.
We would rather tell you that than invent a tidy answer.
Keep the paper trail either way
The one-device rule applies here too
Worth stating because UKPN’s 5 kW auto-approval threshold invites the wrong conclusion. If a device is 800 VA and the threshold is 5 kW, could you not connect several?
No. 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, and that this applies unless and until G98 is amended. Two rules, and the tighter one binds: one device per household. The product marking will say “per household circuit”; the network rule is what actually constrains you.
What to have ready when you do get through
Short list, because the full field-by-field walkthrough is elsewhere:
- Your address and MPAN
- Device make and model, exactly as printed on it
- Registered capacity — the microinverter’s AC output, 0.8 kW or lower, not the panel wattage
- Energy storage capacity — zero, because storage within the device is not permitted on this route
- The commissioning date
- The device’s ENA Type Test Register entry, if it has one
On that last point, a caution that applies whoever your operator is: everyplug-in solar device on the ENA Type Test Register is currently marked Non-compliant, which in ENA’s taxonomy is a sub-category of Further Information Required — a staging state meaning the device and its documentation cannot be deemed compliant at this stage, and will be reviewed again once the manufacturer has actioned the comments. Not a failure, then, and not a safety finding. But not something you can rely on today either, and the number verified compliant is zero.
The register also moves faster than any page can. Records get amended and re-published, and the type filter does not always return every record that exists — so a search may show fewer devices than are actually listed. Our certified kits tracker carries the current state.
Frequently asked questions
What is a G98 connection?
Not a connection so much as a notification. G98 is the engineering recommendation covering generation up to 16 A per phase — about 3.68 kW single phase — and connecting under it means telling your network operator what is connected, rather than applying for permission.
Do I need DNO permission to install solar panels?
For equipment inside G98 limits you need to notify, not to ask. The distinction matters less than people hope, because notifying is still mandatory.
What is the maximum current per phase covered by G98?
16 A. A compliant plug-in solar device is capped at 3.5 A.
Can I submit a G98 notification to UK Power Networks myself?
Not through Smart Connect — it is restricted to approved installers. UKPN publishes no alternative consumer route that we could find, so the answer is to ask UKPN directly and keep the reply.
Who owns UK Power Networks?
It is privately owned rather than state-owned, and its corporate ownership has changed hands more than once — we have not verified the current structure against a primary source, so we are not going to state it. What matters for notification is that UKPN is a regulated network operator, not an energy supplier.
Where does UK Power Networks publish its G98 guidance?
In a G98 and G99 FAQ document linked from its distributed energy resources page. It is written for connections professionals and does not cover householder self-notification.
For the standard rather than UKPN’s implementation of it, see our G98 and DNO notification explainer or the shorter G98 notification guide for balcony solar. If you are working out whether you can install at all, how to install balcony solar and balcony solar electrical safety cover the practical side.