Get your heat network authorised with Ofgem

A "relevant heat network" is any network that supplies heat, cooling, or hot water to two or more premises that are not all owned by the same person - it covers large district schemes and much smaller communal systems alike, including a single block of flats on one shared boiler or heat interface unit. Two separate roles can trigger regulation, and you can hold either or both: the operator runs and maintains the network's plant, and the supplier bills and contracts with the end consumer. If you are a landlord, managing agent, or housing association running a communal heating system and billing tenants for their heat, you are very likely a heat supplier - and possibly an operator too - even if you think of the arrangement as simply "included in the service charge" rather than a utility supply.

Some networks and arrangements are exempt or fall outside scope - for example certain very small or temporary systems - so check your specific network against Ofgem's published scope guidance rather than assuming size alone puts you outside it.

Every relevant heat network needs its own registration - if you run more than one scheme, each one needs a separate entry. Registration is made through Ofgem's Heat Networks Digital Service, which opened for submissions in spring 2026, and must be completed by 26 January 2027. You will need to give Ofgem details of the network's ownership and organisational structure, its financial resilience, and its consumer-protection arrangements. Missing the deadline is a criminal offence, not just a compliance gap, so build registration into your 2026 workplan now rather than treating it as a 2027 task.

Ofgem's authorisation conditions require heat suppliers to treat customers broadly as gas and electricity suppliers must: fair and transparent pricing (Condition A6) and cost allocation (Condition A7), clear itemised billing that replaces vague monthly charges, a Consumer Welcome Pack and Priority Services Register for customers in vulnerable circumstances, a Financial Resilience Statement, and a Supply Continuity Plan covering what happens if you cannot continue supplying heat. Some of these conditions replace parts of the older Heat Network (Metering and Billing) Regulations 2014, which continue to apply alongside the new regime where they are not superseded - so check which set of rules covers metering and billing on your specific network rather than assuming one has fully replaced the other.

The voluntary Heat Trust scheme set the model for many of these protections before regulation existed, and its standards are now complementary to your statutory Ofgem conditions rather than a substitute for them.

Alongside consumer protection, Ofgem authorisation increasingly requires certification against formal technical standards for network design, performance, and efficiency - the Heat Network Technical Assurance Scheme (HNTAS). The voluntary CIBSE CP1 (2020) code of practice has been the industry benchmark to date, and the new Heat Network Technical Standard (TS1) is built on CP1 but converts it from voluntary guidance into a formal certification requirement. If your network was designed or installed to CP1 already, you are well placed - but do not assume past compliance with a voluntary code automatically satisfies the new statutory technical conditions once they take full effect.

You must have a clear, accessible internal complaints process for your heat network customers. Once a complaint has been through your internal process and remains unresolved, the customer can escalate it to the Energy Ombudsman, which now covers heat networks alongside gas and electricity. As an authorised heat supplier you must register with the Energy Ombudsman redress scheme so this escalation route is available - this is separate from, and additional to, your Ofgem registration. Unresolved complaints about matters like unplanned outages can lead to Ombudsman-directed compensation, so a documented, working internal process that actually resolves most issues before escalation is in your interest as well as your customers'.

Once you are registered and your consumer-protection arrangements are in place, review your position periodically rather than treating authorisation as a one-off task - notify Ofgem of material changes to your organisation, ownership, or the network itself, and keep your Financial Resilience Statement and Supply Continuity Plan current as your business changes.