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Ofgem has accepted Cadent’s offer to refund £54 million in allowances for its 2013-2021 price control. 

Cadent, formerly National Grid Gas Distribution, owns the gas distribution networks in North London, Central England, the East of England and North West England. 

Ofgem sets price controls for Britain’s energy network companies. Ofgem consulted on Cadent’s offer and has now decided to reduce Cadent’s allowances by £54m. This follows Ofgem’s mid period review of the 2013-2021 gas distribution, gas transmission and electricity transmission price controls. It is in addition to the £185m reduction in National Grid’s allowances which has already been announced under this mid-period review.*

Cadent offered to waive £54 million of allowances for some investment it will no longer be making in its Central London gas network during the current price control. 

Notes to editors

1. Yesterday’s decision document will appear in the publications and updates section on this link.  

2.  National Grid Gas Distribution was renamed Cadent in May this year following the sale of by National Grid of the majority stake in its gas distribution business to a consortium.
3. As part of yesterday’s decision Ofgem has also decided to delay the allowances that National Grid and Scottish Power will receive for building the Western HVDC link, a subsea electricity cable linking Hunterston in Scotland with Deeside in North Wales. This is because the completion of the cable has been delayed until 2017-18 due to cable manufacturing problems.
4. Ofgem sets the amount each network company can spend on running and investing in its network before the price control begins. The companies recover this money through network charges on consumer energy bills. Ofgem’s mid- period review involved checking whether certain outputs that the companies agreed to deliver before their price control began are still needed.

*A link to the press release on the previous decision on the mid-period review is here.

Further information for media

For further information, contact:
Chris Lock: 0207 901 7225 / 07766 511470

Further information for investors

Martin Young, head of investor relations: 07388 384225

About Ofgem

Ofgem is the independent energy regulator for Great Britain. Its priority is to make a positive difference for consumers by promoting competition in the energy markets and regulating networks.

For facts, figures and information about Ofgem’s work, see Energy facts and figuresor visit the Ofgem Data Portal. 

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