UK Grid Capacity Tracker (NESO TEC register)

Structured, diff-based tracking of the Great Britain electricity transmission connection queue, based on the official National Energy System Operator (NESO) Transmission Entry Capacity (TEC) register.

When should an AI agent use this?

• "Which UK transmission connection projects changed status or capacity since the last run?"
• "Show all battery-storage projects connected to NGET substations with Gate 2 status."
• "Which connection sites have the largest contracted generation and storage queue?"
• "Find projects with a planned connection date before 2030."
• "Which Scottish transmission-owner projects are still in the Gate 1 waiting list?"

What this Actor does

• Resolves and downloads the latest TEC Register CSV through the public NESO CKAN API. The register is updated twice weekly.
• Aggregates staged source rows into one record per TEC project using the case-sensitive NESO Project ID.
• Reports contracted transmission capacity, already-connected MW, connection site, transmission owner, technology, project status, Gate 1/2 and expected effective date.
• Detects new and changed projects between runs using a persistent named key-value-store snapshot.
• Supports filters for technology, connection site, transmission owner, gate, status and capacity.
• Delivers a free per-run summary with totals and the most heavily queued connection sites.

Scope and limitations

This is a transmission-level tracker. It covers projects holding or seeking Transmission Entry Capacity with NESO, including large generation, storage, demand, interconnector and reactive-compensation projects. It does not provide a postcode-level capacity lookup and does not cover all distribution-network headroom published separately by individual DNOs. A connection site is reported by the official substation/GSP name, not by coordinates.

capacityMW is the maximum official Cumulative Total Capacity (MW) across a project's staged rows. builtMW is the maximum official MW Connected value. No own forecast of available headroom or connection probability is calculated.

Input

Field	Type	Description
technology	array of strings	Optional exact technology filters, case-insensitive. Examples: Energy Storage System, Wind Onshore, PV Array (Photo Voltaic/solar), Interconnector. Co-located records match when any technology matches.
connectionSite	string	Optional case-insensitive substring filter for the official substation/GSP name.
hostTO	array of strings	Optional transmission-owner filter: NGET, SHET, SPT, OFTO.
gate	array of strings	Optional Connections Reform filter: 1 or 2. Blank-gate projects are excluded when this filter is set.
status	array of strings	Optional exact case-insensitive filter on the official Project Status, such as Scoping, Awaiting Consents, Consents Approved, Built.
minCapacityMW	number	Optional minimum total contracted TEC.
maxCapacityMW	number	Optional maximum total contracted TEC.
onlyChangedSinceLastRun	boolean	Default true. Delivers only new/changed records. If false, delivers the full filtered snapshot while change flags remain available.

Output

{
  "projectId": "a0l8e000000f3zXAAQ",
  "projectNumber": "PRO-003804",
  "projectName": "012 NEP Coventry West",
  "customerName": "NEW ENERGY PARTNERSHIP LIMITED",
  "connectionSite": "Berkswell GSP",
  "hostTO": "NGET",
  "agreementType": "Embedded",
  "technologies": ["Energy Storage System"],
  "capacityMW": 92.4,
  "builtMW": 0,
  "commissioningDate": "2034-10-31",
  "projectStatus": "Scoping",
  "gate": null,
  "connectionReadiness": "scoping",
  "stageCount": 1,
  "stages": [
    {
      "stage": null,
      "status": "Scoping",
      "mwConnected": 0,
      "mwIncreaseDecrease": 92.4,
      "cumulativeTotalCapacityMW": 92.4,
      "mwEffectiveFrom": "2034/10/31",
      "commissioningDateISO": "2034-10-31"
    }
  ],
  "isNewSinceLastRun": false,
  "isChangedSinceLastRun": true,
  "previousStatus": "Awaiting Consents",
  "previousGate": null,
  "previousCapacityMW": 92.4,
  "sourceUrl": "https://api.neso.energy/dataset/.../download/tec-register-04-august-2026.csv",
  "scrapedAt": "2026-08-04T21:00:00.000Z"
}

connectionReadiness is a transparent normalization of official fields, not an investment prediction:

• built: official Project Status is Built.
• gate2_firm: Gate is 2.
• gate1_waiting: Gate is 1.
• in_consents: status is Awaiting Consents or Consents Approved and no gate is present.
• scoping: status is Scoping and no gate is present.
• unknown: another source status.

The dataset also receives one free summary item per run with total project count, total contracted MW, built MW, counts by status/technology/owner/gate and the top ten connection sites by contracted MW.

Use cases

• Renewable, storage and interconnector developers monitoring the GB transmission queue.
• Grid-connection consultants tracking Gate 1/Gate 2 reform signals.
• Infrastructure investors screening project and connection-site concentration.
• Energy analysts comparing contracted versus already-connected capacity.
• Data pipelines that need stable JSON instead of repeatedly parsing the NESO CSV.

Pricing

This Actor uses Apify Pay-Per-Event pricing.

• Actor Start: Apify default.
• project-record: $0.01 per delivered project record after the initial baseline run. This includes records delivered in full-snapshot mode; the first run seeds the baseline without charging.
• connection-update: $0.02 extra per project that is new or changed since the previous run. This event is charged only after the baseline exists.

Legal and source

Source: National Energy System Operator (NESO) Transmission Entry Capacity (TEC) register, published through the NESO Data Portal. The source identifies project/customer companies and grid infrastructure; it is not intended as a personal-data directory. The dataset is provided under the NESO Open Data Licence:

https://www.neso.energy/data-portal/ngeso-open-licence

The actor does not bypass authentication, scrape a private portal or make connection/financial/legal recommendations. Users remain responsible for checking the latest official connection offer and network information before making an investment decision.

FAQ

How often is the source updated?

NESO states that the TEC register is updated twice weekly, on Tuesdays and Fridays. Running more frequently will normally return the same source snapshot.

Does Gate 2 mean the project is guaranteed to connect?

No. Gate 2 is an official Connections Reform classification and indicates the firm/ordered pipeline as represented by the register. It is not a guarantee, investment recommendation or substitute for a connection agreement.

Why are there multiple stages in a project?

NESO can publish several staged TEC rows for one Project ID. The actor merges those rows into one project record, keeps the stage details in stages, and uses the maximum cumulative capacity as capacityMW.

Does this include every UK distribution connection?

No. This v1 covers the NESO transmission register. Distribution-level embedded-capacity and connection-queue data is fragmented across DNOs and is intentionally outside the first release.

Does the actor calculate spare capacity at a substation?

No. The TEC register reports contracted/connected project capacity, not a complete engineering headroom calculation. The summary shows queue concentration, not available hosting capacity.

Keywords

uk grid capacity, UK grid connection queue, NESO TEC register, Transmission Entry Capacity, electricity transmission, grid connections, Gate 1, Gate 2, battery storage, solar, wind, renewable energy, interconnector, substation, connection queue

Changelog

0.1.0

• Initial release.
• Added live NESO CKAN resource resolution and retrying CSV download.
• Added one-record-per-project aggregation for staged TEC rows.
• Added filters, persistent change detection and per-run queue summary.