National Grid Electricity Distribution

National Grid Electricity Distribution (NGED) is the licensed electricity distribution network operator for the Midlands, the South West of England and South Wales — the poles-and-wires DNO that delivers power to over 7.9 million customers across roughly 55,500 square kilometres, formed when National Grid acquired Western Power Distribution in 2021. It sits between the transmission network and the retail suppliers, owning the physical network, the connection queue and the low-voltage measurement estate, while selling nothing to consumers directly. Its home market is the United Kingdom, where there is no consumer data-portability mandate equivalent to Australia's Consumer Data Right: individual household smart-meter data flows through the licensed Smart DCC monopoly and the energy suppliers, not through the distributor. What Britain mandated instead lands squarely on NGED — Ofgem's Data Best Practice Guidance is a licence condition on every DNO, and NGED has actually implemented it. The Connected Data Portal at connecteddata.nationalgrid.co.uk is a live CKAN 2.9.8 instance carrying 91 datasets and 8,687 resources under a genuine open licence derived from the Open Government Licence v3.0, with a documented public CKAN Action API, published API-token guidance, and DCAT catalogue exports in JSON-LD, Turtle, N3 and RDF/XML. The posture is therefore the inverse of most utilities in this study: open, documented and machine-readable on grid and market data — including the Ofgem-mandated aggregated smart-meter consumption data at LV feeder and secondary substation level — and completely absent on individual consumer data, which the distributor is neither obliged nor equipped to expose. Anonymous callers get the full catalogue and 774 resource payloads; the other 7,913 are redacted behind a free, self-serve, email-verified account.

National Grid Electricity Distribution publishes 2 APIs on the APIs.io network. Tagged areas include Energy, United Kingdom, Utilities, Electricity, and Grid.

The National Grid Electricity Distribution catalog on APIs.io includes 1 JSON-LD context.

National Grid Electricity Distribution’s developer surface includes authentication, API reference, getting-started guide, FAQ, developer portal, documentation, signup flow, and 28 more developer resources.

35.1/100 thin ▬ flat Agent 29/100 agent aware Full breakdown ↓
scored 2026-07-28 · rubric v0.5
2 APIs 1 MCP Servers
EnergyUnited KingdomUtilitiesElectricityGridDistribution NetworkOpen DataSmart MeteringDERFlexibilityRenewables

Kin Score

Kin Score Kin Score How this is scored →
scored 2026-07-28 · rubric v0.5
Composite quality — 35.1/100 · thin
Contract Quality 2.4 / 25
Developer Ergonomics 11.7 / 20
Commercial Clarity 6.8 / 20
Operational Transparency 0.0 / 13
Governance 1.6 / 12
Discoverability 9.3 / 10
Agent readiness — 29/100 · agent aware
Machine-Readable Contract 0 / 18
Agentic Access Contract 0 / 15
MCP Server 12 / 12
Machine-Readable Auth 10 / 10
Idempotency 0 / 9
Stable Error Semantics 8 / 8
Request/Response Examples 0 / 7
Rate-Limit Signaling 0 / 7
Typed Event Surface 0 / 6
Agent Skills 0 / 5
Well-Known Catalog 0 / 4
Consent & Bot Identity 0 / 3
Improve this rating by publishing the missing artifacts — every area above can be raised, and the full rubric is at apis.io/rating/. This rating is computed from github.com/api-evangelist/national-grid-electricity-distribution: open an issue to ask a question, or submit a pull request to add artifacts. Want it done for you? Prioritized profiling — $2,500 →

APIs 2

Individual APIs this provider publishes, each with its own machine-readable definition.

NGED Connected Data Portal API

The public CKAN 2.9.8 Action API behind National Grid Electricity Distribution's Connected Data Portal, documented by NGED on its own API Guidance page. Exposes the DNO's open d...

NGED Connected Data DCAT Catalogue

Machine-readable DCAT catalogue exports of the entire NGED Connected Data Portal, linked from the footer of every portal page and served anonymously in four serialisations — JSO...

MCP Servers 1

Model Context Protocol servers that expose these APIs to AI agents.

Semantic Vocabularies 1

JSON-LD contexts and semantic vocabularies used across these APIs.

Security Posture 2

Authentication, domain security, vulnerability disclosure, and trust-center signals.

Resources

Get Started 9

Portal, sign-up, and the first successful call

Scroll for all 9

Documentation 4

Reference material describing how the API behaves

Agent Surfaces 2

MCP servers, agent skills, and machine-readable catalogs

Design & Contract 7

Pagination, idempotency, versioning, errors, and events

Scroll for all 7

Build 1

SDKs, sample code, and the tooling you integrate with

Access & Security 2

Authentication, authorization, and security posture

Operate 3

Status, limits, changes, and where to get help

Commercial 3

Pricing, plans, and the legal terms of use

Company 2

The organization behind the API

Other 2

Properties that don't map to a standard resource type

Source (apis.yml)

apis.yml Raw ↑
aid: national-grid-electricity-distribution
url: https://raw.githubusercontent.com/api-evangelist/national-grid-electricity-distribution/refs/heads/main/apis.yml
name: National Grid Electricity Distribution
kind: company
description: 'National Grid Electricity Distribution (NGED) is the licensed electricity distribution network operator for
  the Midlands, the South West of England and South Wales — the poles-and-wires DNO that delivers power to over 7.9 million
  customers across roughly 55,500 square kilometres, formed when National Grid acquired Western Power Distribution in 2021.
  It sits between the transmission network and the retail suppliers, owning the physical network, the connection queue and
  the low-voltage measurement estate, while selling nothing to consumers directly. Its home market is the United Kingdom,
  where there is no consumer data-portability mandate equivalent to Australia''s Consumer Data Right: individual household
  smart-meter data flows through the licensed Smart DCC monopoly and the energy suppliers, not through the distributor. What
  Britain mandated instead lands squarely on NGED — Ofgem''s Data Best Practice Guidance is a licence condition on every DNO,
  and NGED has actually implemented it. The Connected Data Portal at connecteddata.nationalgrid.co.uk is a live CKAN 2.9.8
  instance carrying 91 datasets and 8,687 resources under a genuine open licence derived from the Open Government Licence
  v3.0, with a documented public CKAN Action API, published API-token guidance, and DCAT catalogue exports in JSON-LD, Turtle,
  N3 and RDF/XML. The posture is therefore the inverse of most utilities in this study: open, documented and machine-readable
  on grid and market data — including the Ofgem-mandated aggregated smart-meter consumption data at LV feeder and secondary
  substation level — and completely absent on individual consumer data, which the distributor is neither obliged nor equipped
  to expose. Anonymous callers get the full catalogue and 774 resource payloads; the other 7,913 are redacted behind a free,
  self-serve, email-verified account.'
image: https://kinlane-images.s3.amazonaws.com/shared/apis-json/apis-json-logo.jpg
tags:
- Energy
- United Kingdom
- Utilities
- Electricity
- Grid
- Distribution Network
- Open Data
- Smart Metering
- DER
- Flexibility
- Renewables
created: '2026-07-27'
modified: '2026-07-27'
specificationVersion: '0.19'
apis:
- aid: national-grid-electricity-distribution:nged-connected-data-api
  name: NGED Connected Data Portal API
  description: 'The public CKAN 2.9.8 Action API behind National Grid Electricity Distribution''s Connected Data Portal, documented
    by NGED on its own API Guidance page. Exposes the DNO''s open data catalogue — 91 datasets, 8,687 resources, 155 tags
    and 6 data groups (connection, demand, flexibility, innovation, system-and-network, system-planning) — covering live power
    cuts, live primary and secondary substation measurements, LV load monitoring, the Embedded Capacity Register, the generation
    capacity register, distribution substation data and the Ofgem-mandated aggregated smart meter consumption data. Catalogue-level
    calls (package_list, package_search, package_show, group_list, group_show, tag_list, status_show) return 200 anonymously.
    Resource-level calls (resource_show, datastore_search) and the majority of resource download URLs are gated behind a free
    API token, returning "Access denied: Resource access restricted to registered users".'
  image: https://kinlane-images.s3.amazonaws.com/shared/apis-json/apis-json-logo.jpg
  humanURL: https://connecteddata.nationalgrid.co.uk/api-guidance
  baseURL: https://connecteddata.nationalgrid.co.uk/api/3/action/
  tags:
  - Open Data
  - Electricity
  - Distribution Network
  - Grid
  - Smart Metering
  - Flexibility
  - CKAN
  properties:
  - type: Documentation
    url: https://connecteddata.nationalgrid.co.uk/api-guidance
  - type: APIReference
    url: https://docs.ckan.org/en/latest/api/index.html
  - type: Portal
    url: https://connecteddata.nationalgrid.co.uk/
  - type: Datasets
    url: https://connecteddata.nationalgrid.co.uk/dataset/
  - type: Authentication
    url: https://connecteddata.nationalgrid.co.uk/api-guidance
  - type: Authentication
    url: authentication/national-grid-electricity-distribution-authentication.yml
  - type: Conventions
    url: conventions/national-grid-electricity-distribution-conventions.yml
  - type: ErrorCatalog
    url: errors/national-grid-electricity-distribution-problem-types.yml
  - type: DataModel
    url: data-model/national-grid-electricity-distribution-data-model.yml
  - type: MCPServer
    url: mcp/national-grid-electricity-distribution-mcp.yml
  - type: SignUp
    url: https://connecteddata.nationalgrid.co.uk/user/register
  - type: GettingStarted
    url: https://connecteddata.nationalgrid.co.uk/registration-and-subscription
  - type: Documentation
    url: https://connecteddata.nationalgrid.co.uk/registration-and-subscription
  - type: License
    url: https://www.nationalgrid.co.uk/open-data-licence
  - type: Support
    url: https://connecteddata.nationalgrid.co.uk/contact
- aid: national-grid-electricity-distribution:nged-connected-data-catalogue
  name: NGED Connected Data DCAT Catalogue
  description: Machine-readable DCAT catalogue exports of the entire NGED Connected Data Portal, linked from the footer of
    every portal page and served anonymously in four serialisations — JSON-LD (205 KB), Turtle (112 KB), N3 and RDF/XML. Not
    a REST API but a genuine, versionless, contract-shaped harvesting surface for the DNO's full 91-dataset catalogue.
  image: https://kinlane-images.s3.amazonaws.com/shared/apis-json/apis-json-logo.jpg
  humanURL: https://connecteddata.nationalgrid.co.uk/
  baseURL: https://connecteddata.nationalgrid.co.uk/
  tags:
  - Open Data
  - DCAT
  - JSON-LD
  - Catalog
  properties:
  - type: JSONLD
    url: https://connecteddata.nationalgrid.co.uk/catalog.jsonld
  - type: JSONLD
    url: json-ld/national-grid-electricity-distribution-catalog.jsonld
  - type: Vocabulary
    url: vocabulary/national-grid-electricity-distribution-vocabulary.yml
  - type: Data
    url: https://connecteddata.nationalgrid.co.uk/catalog.ttl
  - type: Data
    url: https://connecteddata.nationalgrid.co.uk/catalog.xml
  - type: Data
    url: https://connecteddata.nationalgrid.co.uk/catalog.n3
  - type: Portal
    url: https://connecteddata.nationalgrid.co.uk/
  - type: License
    url: https://www.nationalgrid.co.uk/open-data-licence
common:
- type: DomainSecurity
  url: security/national-grid-electricity-distribution-domain-security.yml
- type: Authentication
  url: authentication/national-grid-electricity-distribution-authentication.yml
- type: Conventions
  url: conventions/national-grid-electricity-distribution-conventions.yml
- type: ErrorCatalog
  url: errors/national-grid-electricity-distribution-problem-types.yml
- type: Conformance
  url: conformance/national-grid-electricity-distribution-conformance.yml
- type: Vocabulary
  url: vocabulary/national-grid-electricity-distribution-vocabulary.yml
- type: DataModel
  url: data-model/national-grid-electricity-distribution-data-model.yml
- type: Lifecycle
  url: lifecycle/national-grid-electricity-distribution-lifecycle.yml
- type: MCPServer
  url: mcp/national-grid-electricity-distribution-mcp.yml
- type: Packages
  url: packages/national-grid-electricity-distribution-packages.yml
- type: LLMsTxt
  url: llms/national-grid-electricity-distribution-llms.txt
- type: JSONLD
  url: json-ld/national-grid-electricity-distribution-catalog.jsonld
- type: APIReference
  url: https://docs.ckan.org/en/latest/api/index.html
- type: GettingStarted
  url: https://connecteddata.nationalgrid.co.uk/registration-and-subscription
- type: HelpCenter
  url: https://connecteddata.nationalgrid.co.uk/help
- type: FAQ
  url: https://connecteddata.nationalgrid.co.uk/faq
- type: Login
  url: https://connecteddata.nationalgrid.co.uk/user/login
- type: Website
  url: https://www.nationalgrid.co.uk/
- type: About
  url: https://connecteddata.nationalgrid.co.uk/about
- type: Portal
  url: https://connecteddata.nationalgrid.co.uk/
- type: Documentation
  url: https://connecteddata.nationalgrid.co.uk/api-guidance
- type: SignUp
  url: https://connecteddata.nationalgrid.co.uk/user/register
- type: License
  url: https://www.nationalgrid.co.uk/open-data-licence
- type: PrivacyPolicy
  url: https://www.nationalgrid.co.uk/privacy-policy
- type: TermsOfService
  url: https://www.nationalgrid.co.uk/terms-and-conditions
- type: Support
  url: https://connecteddata.nationalgrid.co.uk/contact
- type: CaseStudies
  url: https://connecteddata.nationalgrid.co.uk/case-studies
- type: Data
  url: https://connecteddata.nationalgrid.co.uk/dataset/
- type: Documentation
  url: https://commercial.nationalgrid.co.uk/digitalisation-and-data
- type: Portal
  url: https://dso.nationalgrid.co.uk/
- type: Portal
  url: https://powercuts.nationalgrid.co.uk/
- type: Portal
  url: https://planned.nationalgrid.co.uk/
- type: Portal
  url: https://connections.nationalgrid.co.uk/
- type: Portal
  url: https://commercial.nationalgrid.co.uk/network-opportunity-map
- type: Documentation
  url: https://www.nationalgrid.co.uk/electricity-distribution
maintainers:
- FN: Kin Lane
  email: kin@apievangelist.com