Ofgem moots ‘controlled access’ to connections queue

Ofgem’s chief executive will tell Utility Week Live today (16 May) that the regulator is pushing an “invest and connect” approach to unblocking the backlog to access the grid.

Jonathan Brearley will discuss possible strategies for accelerating connections, set out in a policy paper to be published this morning, including the introduction of “controlled access” to the queue and eventually even a fully centralised planning model.

He will stress the need for an end to the “blame game” between industry, generators, networks and government in favour of “joint responsibility for getting the connections regime sorted once and for all”.

He is expected to say: “The first-come, first-served system is like queuing for a bus where those in front of you don’t want to get on now, may never want to get on, but want a seat reserved without paying, just in case they change their minds.”

Speaking on the opening day of Utility Week Live, Brearley will also discuss his thoughts on the future of the energy retail market, social tariffs and the Future System Operator.

His comments come as the National Grid Electricity System Operator (ESO) confirmed that 8GW of projects in the queue have expressed an interest in withdrawing as part of its ‘amnesty’. As of April 2023, more than 280GW of projects were seeking connections, compared to 83GW that is currently connected to the transmission network.

Brearley will welcome the progress made by the ESO but stress the need for “bolder, direct interventions” to get the grid on tack for decarbonisation by 2035.

The policy paper sets out four illustrative stages of connections reform, beginning with the plans being put in place by the ESO and the Energy Networks Association. A more “fundamental change” would be the introduction of controlled access to the queue – either through application windows or with the introduction of stricter qualification gates.

The paper says the applications within these windows could be managed in different ways, “from first-come-first-served to other approaches to prioritisation (including scope for customers to play a greater role) with potential trading or auction-like mechanisms”.

The idea of strictly planned and coordinated connections takes the model one step further by imagining specific connection types or capacities incentivised or procured in certain areas to support system needs. The policy paper acknowledges that this longer-term approach is “highly uncertain and would strongly depend on wider and as yet uncertain reforms to the energy market and future system planning”.

In his speech, Brearley will argue connection delays and costs are the biggest risk to decarbonising the power system by 2035 as well as to government targets on offshore wind and solar.

He will say: “Polite queuing may be in the very best of British traditions – but the first-come, first-served connections regime is not fit for purpose if we are to end fossil fuel power within 12 years.

“It is unacceptable energy projects are blocking great low-carbon schemes from plugging into the transmission network – with connection times of a decade or more.

“Ambitious targets are empty words if we can’t get this right. It’s like promising everyone an electric car today but stopping them driving it until 2033.”

Meanwhile, the ESO’s update on its five-point plan reveals changes to the way energy storage projects connect to the grid. It will now treat energy storage as 0MW, enabling these projects to connect ahead of certain works that would traditionally have been required. Projects treated in this way could be instructed to occasionally reduce their output, the ESO said.

On Monday (15 May), National Grid released a report proposing that projects bidding for transmission connections should be subject to tighter thresholds, while also calling for a spatial plan to be drawn up to map the UK’s low carbon energy infrastructure.