Energy businesses span very different operations — generating electricity, running the wires and pipes, making and shipping gas, selling energy to customers, and supplying heat, steam or cooling — but they share one defining feature: in Great Britain most of these activities need an Ofgem licence or authorisation before you can operate, with HSE regulating the major-hazard safety side. This path takes you through it in order: first work out which rules apply to what you operate, then put the shared duties in place, then follow the rules for your kind of operation, and finish by checking you have covered everything. If you operate in Northern Ireland, your licences come from the Utility Regulator (UREGNI) instead.
Step 1 — Work out which rules apply
Identify what you operate — generation, electricity networks, gas networks or manufacture, energy supply, or heat, steam and air conditioning — each has different licensing and safety rules on top of the shared duties.
Step 2 — Put the shared duties in place
Every energy business must manage workplace health and safety as a major-hazard discipline, insure its employees, hold the right environmental permits, comply with the UK Emissions Trading Scheme where installations exceed the threshold, and check its COMAH position.
Step 3 — Follow the rules for what you operate
Now work through the guide for your kind of energy business. If you run more than one kind of operation, follow each relevant guide. For renewables project development — offshore wind, seabed leases and Contracts for Difference — the start a renewable energy business journey covers the project lifecycle in depth.
If you generate electricity
Check whether you need an Ofgem generation licence or qualify for a class exemption, secure a grid connection agreement, choose the right planning consent route, and register for the support schemes you use.
If you run an electricity network
Hold the right transmission or distribution licence, comply with the Grid Code and CUSC, report under your RIIO price control, and meet Ofgem's guaranteed standards of performance.
If you run a gas network or manufacture gas
Get a gas transporter licence, have your safety case accepted by HSE before conveying gas or starting a gas manufacturing process, manage pipeline major-accident duties, and report under RIIO-GD.
If you supply or trade energy
Hold the right supply licences, join the Balancing and Settlement Code and Uniform Network Code, keep domestic tariffs within the price cap, and meet your renewable-scheme obligations.
If you run a heat network, or supply steam or air conditioning
Prepare for Ofgem heat network authorisation under the Energy Act 2023, maintain written schemes for pressure systems, hold F-gas certification, meet building energy standards, and certify CHP under CHPQA.
Step 4 — Confirm you are compliant
Work through the energy compliance checklist to confirm every obligation that applies to your business is in place.