Standard content for Members only
To continue reading this article, please login to your Utility Week account, Start 14 day trial or Become a member.
If your organisation already has a corporate membership and you haven’t activated it simply follow the register link below. Check here.
Ofgem has approved National Grid Electricity System Operator (ESO)’s proposal for a two-step process in offering connections to the transmission grid in England and Wales.
From this month, projects applying for a place in the transmission entry capacity queue will be given an interim offer within three months but without the full details usually required. The second stage of the process, to provide all the details that would normally come with the initial connection offer, must come within 12 months.
These interim measures will be in place for a year, while a wider system review takes place for all contracted offers with a connection date from 2026 onwards.
In Scotland, connections will continue to be offered as usual while the review is carried out.
In a letter approving the ESO’s proposals, Ofgem’s deputy director of market design, energy systems management and security, Jack Presley Abbott stressed that the transmission networks and the ESO must use the time to “materially improve their practice” in order to ease the logjam of connection projects.
Currently as few as 30% of the projects in the queue to connect to the transmission system actually do.
The ESO has long argued that the current connections process, which was designed for a small number of large connections, is not fit for purpose in the face rapid growth in low-carbon technologies. In response it launched a review of the system for making baseline assumptions around volume and attrition for different technologies seeking to connect. The aim is to better reflect the latest technological advances and what reinforcement works they are likely to require.
In September the ESO launched an “amnesty”, allowing projects to withdraw from the transmission queue with no cancellation charges. Utility Week understands 5.5GW of projects have expressed an interest in terminating or reducing their contracted capacity. The amnesty runs until April.
It is also introducing an interim option for storage projects to connect to the network sooner, but with the caveat that they may be required to turn off more frequently when the system is under stress “without initially being paid to do so”.
Please login or Register to leave a comment.