Millennium Apartments

What is a Private Wire Network?

Millennium Apartments has a Private Wire Electricity Supply

• Commercial buildings that were converted to residential homes are done so under permitted development regulations and have greater flexibility through a simplified planning process.
• It can be extremely expensive to install independent on-grid supplies into each converted apartment. Often its more commercial to keep the buildings existing utility infrastructure in place, and instead, install a private wire system.
• The original on-grid, electricity supply point remains in place and provides electricity to the entirety of building and the private wire system feeds from that main supply and into each apartment.
• The electricty supplier invoices Millennium Apartments Management Company Limited for the consumption drawn from the main supply point.
• Millennium Apartments Management Company Limited then passes on charges to each of the residents for their own share of this supply.
• The charges to residents are based on a sub meter reading which measures the consumption going into each home.
• This is known as a private wire supply. The process of onward charging utilities through a private wire network is referred to by OFGEM as Reselling.
• It is not possible to change supplier when you are connected to a private wire supply.
• The Energy Price Guarantee (sometimes known as the price cap )is not available to private wire residents. This is because MAMC purchase the energy through a commercial contract, and the energy supplier cannot give the EPG to commercial users.
• We understand this may seem unfair because the supply is eventually used by domestic consumers, but it is against the regulations for suppliers to apply domestic price caps to a commercial contract and it is impossible to get a domestic contract for a meter that consumes so much power.