The connection certificate

The connection certificate is the final document of the connection process. It attests that the installations have been built, accepted and commissioned, and that the consumption or generation site meets the technical conditions set earlier through the connection permit.

The connection certificate does not replace the connection permit and is not requested instead of it. The two documents mark the two ends of the same process: the ATR sets how the connection will be made, the connection certificate records that it has been made.

For an investor, the connection certificate is the piece that unlocks commercial operation: final energisation of the utilisation installation follows it, conditional on signing the electricity supply contract and on the meter being installed at the delimitation point.

The connection certificate is issued by the network operator — the distribution or transmission operator covering the site. No designer, contractor or supplier can issue it.

PowerGrid Solution does not issue connection certificates. The company's contribution sits upstream: the solution study that substantiates the ATR, the technical design of the connection installation and support through commissioning and acceptance — precisely the documents and stages without which the certificate cannot be issued.

The connection certificate is issued once the works are finished and verified. According to the ANRE documents describing the stages of the connection process, the moment of issuing is tied to the acceptance of the commissioning of the connection installation and to the filing of the utilisation installation file.

The order matters. The utilisation installation file is lodged within the deadline set in the connection contract and at the latest by the issuing of the connection certificate; if the file was not lodged by the time of acceptance, the issuing deadline starts running from the date the file is lodged.

Where the applicable technical standards call for tests at the consumption or generation site, the issuing of the connection certificate is conditional on those tests being carried out and on the conformity certificate being presented to the network operator.

The connection certificate is not obtained through a separate application, but as a consequence of the documents that close the construction phase. Three pieces appear in every variant of the process.

Consumption and generation sites belonging to prosumers follow an ANRE order separate from the general connection regulation. The visible difference in the document is that the connection certificate issued at the end records the prosumer status.

The rest of the logic is unchanged: the certificate follows the acceptance and commissioning of the connection installation and the acceptance report for the commissioning of the utilisation installation, and final energisation follows the certificate.

The capacity thresholds and the exact classification of a photovoltaic project as prosumer or producer are confirmed with the network operator, because they decide which of the two rule sets applies to the file.

After the connection certificate is issued, the utilisation installation is energised for good and the meter is installed at the delimitation point. Final energisation is conditional on signing the electricity transport, distribution or supply contract.

From that moment the installation moves from project mode into operation. The documents that stay with the client and that matter in any later check are the connection certificate, the as-built design and the conformity certificates.

Confusing the two documents is the most common mistake in the whole process, and its practical consequence is a badly built project schedule.