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National Grid has brought forward a £90 million upgrade of 82km of overhead power line by a year.
The upgrade, between Bramley in Hampshire and Melksham in Wiltshire, will help to accelerate the grid connection of 175 clean energy projects in South West England and Wales.
The £90 million scheme includes replacing conductors between the 229 transmission towers on the route with new cables which can operate at a higher temperature and therefore allow more power to pass through the transmission circuit.
The upgrade of approximately 3000MVA (Megavolt-Amperes) will allow increased flow of electricity out of South West England on the high voltage network, removing a constraint for the 175 projects looking to connect in the region which currently have connection dates of 2028 and beyond.
The project has been brought forward a year and will now begin in January 2024, finishing in October 2025, with National Grid – in partnership with the ESO – discussing accelerated connection dates with customers as part of each individual project’s development.
This upgrade follows National Grid’s recent announcement of accelerating up to 20GW of grid connections across its transmission and distribution networks, including accelerating 10GW of battery storage projects by up to four years.
Alice Delahunty, president at National Grid Electricity Transmission, said: “Accelerating grid connections for clean energy projects is a massive priority for us. We recognise the urgency which is why we have brought this project forward to make a real difference for our customers.
“The need to build new network infrastructure is widely acknowledged, but upgrade projects to existing power lines such as this are an equally important part of how we are making sure the grid is fit for the future. We look forward to completing the work and working with customers to accelerate clean energy connections to the grid.”
RenewableUK’s director of future electricity systems, Barnaby Wharton, added: “This is a great example of the way the grid is being upgraded to enable everyone to benefit from the vast quantities of electricity we’re now generating from renewables.
“By addressing grid bottlenecks effectively and swiftly, projects like this strengthen our energy security and maximise savings for consumers, as we build up our twenty-first century energy system based on clean home-grown power sources.”
Speeding up upgrades is just one way that the connections backlog is being cleared.
New rules approved by Ofgem in November allow the ESO to remove “zombie projects” from the connections queue if they fail to meet a number of milestone agreements related to securing planning consents and hitting construction targets.
The queue management milestones were implemented on 27 November and apply to both existing and future grid connection agreements.
Currently, there are 232 projects accounting for around 45GW of capacity that are due to connect by the end of 2025.
The ESO has already identified 144 “high risk” projects which are now at risk of having their grid connection agreements terminated as early as next year.
While the move has been widely welcomed, lawyers have warned that cancelling grid connection agreements could lead to litigation from disgruntled developers.
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