Northern Ireland Electricity (NIE) must comply with guaranteed standards of service (GSS) to its individual customers. These standards protect customers and provide for payments to be made to individual customers if set levels of performance are not met. The Utility Regulator intends reviewing and modifying these guaranteed standards. The occurrence of a Severe Weather Event may impact adversely on the normal service provided to customers and on NIE’s performance. The first stage of this review of GSS is to update NIE’s transmission and distribution licences to include a definition of severe weather event.
In October 2014 we issued consultation paper on modifications to NIE’s licence to include a definition of severe weather event. Our consultation closed on 17th December 2014 and two responses were received – from NIE and CCNI. We have considered the consultation responses and other relevant factors and today we publish our decision paper. Our decision paper also includes a Licence Modification Notice which explains the format and nature of licence modifications which have been enacted within NIE’s transmission and distribution licences- effective as of today.
Following this enactment of licence modifications we will consider any necessary changes to the guaranteed standards legislation- the Electricity (Standards of Performance) Regulations (Northern Ireland) 1993 in conjunction with the Department of Enterprise, Trade and Investment.