Call for tougher penalties on grid ‘blockers’

Penalties for developers that give up grid connections should be increased and kick in earlier, RWE has urged.

Speaking on a panel at an Energy Networks Association event at the House of Commons, the developer’s head of regulatory affairs Nicola Crawford-Percival called for further steps to make more efficient use of the existing grid alongside building new infrastructure.

She said the existing system is “totally unmanageable” and needs reforming.

In its recently submitted response to the Commons environmental audit committee’s inquiry into electrification of the economy, RWE said the cost of applying for and holding a connection agreement is “extremely slow” and encourages “speculative applications at early stages in project lifecycle in order to secure the place in the queue”.

Crawford-Percival added that the liability for developers to cover the cost of network upgrades “tends to kick in quite late in the process, so we suggest perhaps making it more expensive and bringing forward in the process”.

She added: “That would disincentivise people from hanging onto grid [connection agreements] they don’t need and they would need to give it back unless they are actually going to use it.”

In its submission, RWE says this would encourage only viable projects with a high chance of success to apply for and hold connection agreements.

Crawford-Percival also called for developers to be able to trade connection capacity, such as switching places in the queue.

An example, she said, would be to allow offshore wind farms to take advantage of existing connection capacity at nearby onshore gas plants, which are less likely to be called on by the grid when weather conditions mean the former are generating.

Greater predictability is “really, really important” when securing board approval for investment, she said, adding that the existing system is “very frustrating because we may have to wait quite a long time to be able to know what we’re doing”.

David Joffe, the Climate Change Committee’s head of net zero, warned that the UK will not maintain its recent good track record on rolling out renewables generation if it is unable to put in place supporting grid infrastructure.

“We’re not going to carry on doing well on generation unless we sort this out,” he said. “That needs proper political and ministerial commitment. Without it we are just going to keep hitting barriers.”

He said there also needs be an acceptance that risks must be taken on upgrading the grid, adding that he is worried that while the UK may be able to build all of the generation it needs and electrify motor transport, it may not be able to build the supporting network infrastructure.

He added: “We need to get going on it and accept that there’s a risk that we might get little bits wrong. The risks aren’t that big because we know we need to build a lot of infrastructure for net zero. We kind of know where the generation is going to be and we’ve got pretty good idea of what it is going to look like.”

In his opening remarks at the meeting, ex-energy minister Chris Skidmore MP stressed the need to properly think through the problems in the energy transition and to be creative.

He said: “If we keep trying to push for net zero using the same regulation, policy and processes we have now, we will miss a trick.”