Nearly nine million UK households are estimated to face fuel stress. Energy debt across Great Britain has passed £5 billion. As the grid industry prepares vast investment programmes and data centres scramble for power, who is protecting the people paying the bills?
By Shane Oxer and Annette Exley — Hope to Save Our Countryside Campaigners | 3 November 2026
Christmas is approaching. For households already rationing heating, the immediate question is how to keep the home warm without falling further into debt. Meanwhile, the electricity industry is promoting new substations, larger connections and investment stretching into the next decade.
Ofgem and National Grid Electricity Transmission should expect searching questions about that spending. Every major commitment must explain its cost, its beneficiaries and its effect on ordinary bills. A household cannot heat a living room with a promise about economic growth in 2035.
Households cannot wait until 2035 to be warm
Our previous article set out the affordability crisis. October research published by the Child Poverty Action Group estimates approximately 8.97 million UK households spend more than 10% of their income after housing costs on domestic fuel. Around 2.95 million exceed the 20% threshold. These are modelled estimates using an expenditure measure, rather than the different official fuel-poverty definitions used across the four nations.
Ofgem’s own figures put Great Britain’s domestic energy debt and arrears outstanding for more than 91 days at £5.02 billion in Q2 2026, up 13% in a year. Northern Ireland is outside that total. Citizens Advice’s affordability research also describes households cutting heating, hot water and spending on food.
These are the people who need protection when another long-term cost is loaded into the electricity system.
The NAO warning every MP should read
The industry-backed electricity networks growth plan envisages approximately £181 billion of network investment by 2035. Our previous article examined the wider “up to £200 billion” announcement covering operators and supply chains. Those descriptions overlap; they are not separate bills to add together.
The National Audit Office’s September report found that the transmission upgrade portfolio had not been selected through a whole-system comparison of alternatives, and that government had not demonstrated it was the best way to meet its objectives. It also identified limited public transparency and no single person accountable for the portfolio as a whole.
Most strikingly, the NAO reported that Ofgem had changed its approach to favour faster funding decisions, where possible, over more detailed scrutiny of project costs and risks. The regulator still scrutinises spending in stages, but the trade-off is explicit.
The NAO also found that delivery incentives can reward completion before regulatory target dates that are often later than NESO’s assessment of when projects would be most useful. Consumers deserve an explanation of how those rewards reflect the costs they bear while waiting.
As the sums grow, Parliament should demand stronger evidence that consumers are getting value. The urgency created by earlier decisions must not become a permanent excuse for weaker examination of the next ones.
Teesworks: a major connection, and an unresolved question about who pays
Teesworks announced on 2 November that National Grid had agreed the acquisition of a 73.3-acre site for the proposed Teesside Node A substation. Its initial 1,440 MVA connection capacity is scheduled for the end of 2029, contracted to Steel River Power, the estate’s private network operator. The announcement promotes AI, data centres, manufacturing and other energy-intensive developments.
National Grid’s October needs case identifies new customer demand as the primary driver. This is extra infrastructure to accommodate new loads, with asset condition explicitly described as not being a key driver.
An earlier South Tees Development Corporation board paper, paragraphs 28–34, provisionally costed the new substation at £246 million. It described the proposed connection as being outside the private network owner’s cost, with recovery instead from “Transmission Fees charged to customers over the next 40 years”. That earlier offer concerned 1,380 MVA; today’s announcement gives 1,440 MVA. The current price and charging agreement need reconciling with that earlier record.
Steel River Power has separately announced more than £100 million of investment in its private distribution network. That contribution belongs in the account too. Shared transmission charges are paid by suppliers, generators and directly connected demand; suppliers recover their costs through bills.
Publish the current split: what do the commercial beneficiaries pay, what falls on wider electricity users, and what benefit justifies that wider contribution? Until those figures are available, the public cannot judge whether the deal is fair.
Data-centre demand, and a missing government cost account
On 10 September 2026, the Government told Parliament it was not tracking network reinforcement costs specifically associated with new data centres. It identified Ofgem as responsible for allocating connection charges between developers, network operators and consumers.
Ofgem itself warned in July that speculative data-centre projects could give misleading signals about future network investment needs. It proposed commitment fees and project milestones to help clear the queue.
The obvious next demand is a published account of the investment attributable to this new demand, the developers’ contributions and the costs left for everybody else. Ministers and Ofgem should explain how those costs are being monitored now.
Who carries the loss if the promised data centre arrives late, uses much less power than expected or never opens? The protections and financial guarantees should be visible before substantial costs are committed.
National Grid’s profits are growing. Consumers deserve measurable benefits
National Grid’s 2025–26 results show its UK Electricity Transmission business earned £1.682 billion in underlying operating profit, up 18%. It also invested £4.372 billion in that business. The profit figure is an operating measure, before financing costs and tax; it relates to UK transmission, rather than the whole international group.
Investors can see a measured financial result. Households deserve an equally clear account of what the investment will deliver for them: the expected change in bills, the delivery dates, the assumptions and the consequences if those assumptions fail.
More assets and a larger investment programme do not, by themselves, demonstrate better value for the customer.
£20 million redress after failures to maintain an existing substation
There is already a serious warning in NGET’s own record. On 11 March 2026, Ofgem announced a £20 million redress payment after NGET accepted historic failures to monitor, maintain and repair civil assets at Harker substation near Carlisle during November 2016–November 2021.
Ofgem described deteriorating concrete structures, inadequate inspection and risk assessment, and poor planning of repairs. Failures contributed to delays affecting generation connections. Repairs were undertaken in 2022; the investigation opened that March and concluded in 2026.
Ofgem secured a substantial payment. The public should also be able to see how the lessons have been checked across the existing network before the asset base expands further.
NGET also scored 6.5 out of 10 against a 7.7 target in the connection-customer survey reported in Ofgem’s 2024–25 transmission performance report, attracting a £7.37 million penalty under that incentive. These are customers seeking connections. It is another reason to examine delivery performance alongside the investment announcements.
Ofgem answers to Parliament. Parliament needs to act
NGET’s regulated revenues and performance are overseen by Ofgem. Ofgem, in turn, is accountable to Parliament. The Government’s April 2026 review of Ofgem called for stronger scrutiny, clearer performance reporting and improved capability. It recorded stakeholder concerns that existing routes did not always provide detailed examination of day-to-day performance.
Parliament’s Energy Security and Net Zero Committee should require a public account of the major spending decisions, including costs, beneficiaries, delivery risks and consumer protection. Ministers remain responsible for the policy programme driving the expansion. Independence gives the regulator responsibility for its decisions; it does not remove the duty to explain them.
A regulator’s performance should be judged by the outcomes it secures for consumers, including those who can barely afford the next bill.
Planned SMRs do not power a 2029 connection
There are proposals for new nuclear capacity nearby. Community Nuclear Power advertises approximately 1.3 GW from four Westinghouse AP300 reactors in North Teesside, targeting first operating revenues in 2035. Centrica has described a roughly 1 GW Hartlepool project with X-energy, with first generation envisaged in the mid-2030s, subject to approvals.
Those are development plans. The public needs to know what will supply new demand before then, and how local generation and grid reinforcement have been assessed together. A substation creates connection capacity; it does not generate the electricity passing through it.
Five answers before consumers take on further costs
First, publish the whole cost. Include land, construction, connecting works, financing, operation and replacement, alongside the expected savings.
Second, identify the beneficiaries. Show how much demand is for data centres, other industry and existing consumers, and what each contributes.
Third, disclose the risk. Explain the guarantees and who pays for unused infrastructure if a commercial project changes or collapses.
Fourth, demonstrate household value. Publish the expected bill effect, when benefits arrive and what happens under delays and cost overruns.
Fifth, name the accountable decision-makers. Publish progress and explain failures while there is still time to correct them.
Warm homes must matter as much as new connections
Families facing another winter of unaffordable heating deserve more than distant promises. Ofgem and NGET should provide a public explanation of why each major commitment is necessary, why its design is economical and why its charging arrangements are fair.
Where the evidence demonstrates an unfair cross-subsidy, the charging arrangements should change. Where forecast demand is speculative, safeguards should come before spending. Where delivery fails, the consequences should fall fairly on those responsible.
Households must not become the default financial backstop for every grand commercial ambition.
MAKE THEM SHOW THE EVIDENCE
Our Parliamentary petition 780321 — Suspend Climate Change Act targets & undertake a full national impact assessment calls for a temporary suspension of the relevant statutory targets until Parliament has considered an independent assessment of their full costs and impacts. It expressly includes household bills, fuel poverty, energy security, land requirements and rising demand from data centres.
The petition has passed 10,000 signatures and qualified for a Government response. We are now working towards 100,000, when it will be considered for a parliamentary debate.
SIGN PETITION 780321 — MAKE THEM SHOW THE EVIDENCE
Hope to Save Our Countryside — Energy in the right places.
Substation image: © Teesworks, as published with the November 2026 announcement. Server-rack photograph: Kevin Ache / Unsplash, illustrative.
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