On most projects the grid operator is treated like an exam board. You send documents, you wait, and you hope. I worked that way for years. Then a protection engineer at a regional operator, a patient man named Henrik, rang me to ask why our study included a line that had been taken down in 2019.

We had used an old network map. He could have rejected the submission and let us find out six weeks later. He picked up the phone instead, because I had introduced myself to him at the start of the project. That call saved the schedule.

They want the same thing you do

A grid operator’s job is to keep the lights on for everyone already connected. Your new site is a risk to that until proven otherwise. Once I understood this, their questions stopped feeling like obstacles. They were the same questions I would ask if a stranger wanted to plug 200 MW into my network.

So I now ask for a meeting in the first month, long before there is anything to approve. I bring a single page describing the site and I ask what worries them. The answers are specific and useful. At one site it was voltage on a long rural line. At another it was a neighbouring wind farm with an unusual control system.

Nobody likes surprises, and grid operators like them least of all

I also tell them bad news early. When a transformer delivery slipped on a Voltaic North site, I rang the operator the same day. They moved our test slot without fuss. Two weeks later it would have needed a formal change request.

Habits that have worked for me

• Meet the operator’s engineers in the first month, in person if you can.

• Ask for their latest network data and check its date.

• Send drafts and invite comments before the formal submission.

• Invite them to site early. People trust what they have walked around.

None of this replaces doing the studies properly. It means that when the studies land on someone’s desk, they are reading work from a person they know. At Ostrand the compliance submission passed first time. I do not think that was a coincidence.