Heat networks

How to access the service 

If your organisation is a regulated heat network operator or supplier 

Each heat network operator or supplier must nominate a ‘regulatory contact’. This is typically your organisation’s most senior member of staff with responsibility for heat networks. 

You can change the regulatory contact in the future if you need to. 

The regulatory contact must: 

  1. Request access to the digital service. 
  2. Sign in to or create a GOV.UK One Login account. 
  3. Complete the organisation account creation process. 
  4. Complete a declaration confirming that the people responsible for the heat network are suitable for their roles. 

If you’re signing up for the first time, you must use your individual work email address (or if you’re a sole trader, a business email address you use for your professional activities).  

You must use the same email address to request access to the digital service and to create the GOV.UK One Login account. 

Do not use a shared mailbox email address to set up your account. You can add an alternative address for legal correspondence that can be a shared mailbox email address after account creation when you submit your organisation information. 

Read further guidance on creating a GOV.UK One Login account.  

If you’re a third party acting on behalf of a regulated operator or supplier 

You’ll need to ask the regulatory contact for the operator or supplier to create an account and sign in to the digital service. They can then add you as a user and give you the necessary user permissions based on which actions they want you to carry out.  

As an additional user, you should also create a GOV.UK One Login account.  Your GOV.UK One Login account email must be the same as the one that the regulatory contact used to add you to the service. 

After this, you’ll be able to sign in and use the service on their behalf.  

Registration journey overview  

Registration is designed to help us understand the heat network sector, the organisations involved and the consumers they serve. 

As part of registration, we will ask you to provide information about your organisation and heat networks. We will not ask you to upload supporting documents or evidence. 

You should answer the questions as accurately as possible using the information available to you at the time. 

The heat networks registration process is divided into sections that you can complete separately. The number of questions you have to answer depends on the nature of your organisation.  

At certain points you can save your progress so that you can come back and continue later. You can review your answers at the end of each section and make any changes before submitting that section.  

The stages of the registration journey are: 

  • GOV.UK One Login account creation 
  • heat networks digital service account creation 
  • adding organisation details 
  • completing a fit and proper declaration for everybody with significant managerial responsibility or influence (SMRI) who are responsible for managing heat networks 
  • adding users and setting permissions 

Registering each heat network is another separate stage. Depending on your organisation and the network, you’ll have to provide information in some or all of the following sections: 

  • introductory information 
  • technical information about your energy centre  
  • customers and metering 
  • consumer protections 
  • billing 
  • other suppliers 

The digital service will only show you the questions that are relevant to you.  

Information you need to complete registration 

We have created a list of the information that is required for each stage of registering your organisation and heat networks. 

What happens if I’m an operator, supplier or both 

You can view definitions for operators and suppliers on our who should register page. 

Operator only

If you’re the operator of a specific heat network only and not the supplier, then it’s your responsibility to start the registration process. 

Once you’ve completed the operator specific sections of your heat network registration, you will be prompted to invite your suppliers via the digital service. You can only invite suppliers that have an account. 

If your supplier has not already registered an account, you must first ask them (offline) to create one in the digital service. You will then be able to find their organisation from a drop-down list of suppliers on the digital service and can invite them to register their heat network supply activity.  

Following invitation, your supplier will receive a notification email to prompt them to provide their heat network supply information. 

Supplier only 

If your role on a heat network only covers supply, then you should create an organisational account. This is so that the operator can find you on the list of suppliers and invite you to register your heat network supply activity.  

Operator and supplier 

If you’re both the operator and supplier of a heat network, you’ll be able to complete the whole registration process.