Renewable energy and battery storage site developers are warning that a wait of up to 13 years to connect to Britain’s energy grid is threatening investment and undermining the shift away from fossil fuels.
About 600 projects with combined capacity of 176GW are in the queue in England and Wales, according to National Grid, against 64GW of connected capacity.
Some battery, wind and solar projects are being told they have to wait until 2036 for a connection.
Mark Rowcroft, development director at battery storage site company Exagen, said he “was quoted 2036 last month”, adding that “nobody can hold a project for that long”.
Renewables providers and energy experts say the lack of grid capacity is threatening Britain’s ambitious target of decarbonising the electricity system by 2035 on the path to becoming a net zero emissions economy by 2050. It also underscores the need for an overhaul in the regulation of Britain’s power networks.
The grid, designed for a small number of large fossil fuel generators such as coal-fired power plants, is struggling to shift to a more dispersed range of suppliers such as solar and wind farms, developers say.
Harald Overholm, chief executive of Swedish solar company Alight, blamed the problem on “a collective failure of public policy”, warning that grid connection delays “could become a systemic problem for the UK unless it is addressed hastily”.
“National Grid needs to invest, change its ways of working and hire enough people to meet the demand for the energy transition,” he said, adding that his company would not rule out reconsidering investments in UK solar capacity if the delays are not addressed soon.
Renewable energy providers can apply to National Grid or one of the six regional network operators for the capacity but all of them are overstretched and need more investment.
Dieter Helm, professor of economic policy at Oxford university and a former adviser to the government energy policy, said the failures date back to rules set when the electricity sector was privatised three decades ago.
Regulators rejected any strategic planning for the grid and decided instead that renewable developers could demand connection to the network from any site, he added, while a further problem is that network providers can only invest in building capacity based on connection requests it has received.
The regulatory regime also incentivises the networks to focus on minimising costs rather than setting a path to net zero and “without change, that target in 12 years’ time is not going to be met”, Helm said.
National Grid says it has historically had 40-50 applications for connections a year but this has risen to about 600 per year as renewables suppliers have proliferated. This is on top of significant numbers of applications coming to the regional distributors.
Hugh Taylor, founder of Roadnight Taylor, which provides advice on grid connections to developers, said the “tidal wave” of applications meant about 80 per cent of those made to the regional distribution networks were unsuccessful because they would be too expensive, although this varied by area.
Taylor’s company also helps landowners secure grid capacity so they can gain an income by selling it to a developer. The cost of booking grid capacity in advance has been rising and a grid connection tied to a piece of land could be worth more than £1mn, Taylor said.
Some renewable developers argue that speculative buyers are adding to the network congestion.
Andrew McAleavey, founder of Penso Power, a battery storage site developer, said: “The system that has been created encourages speculation,” adding: “It’s very hard to plan 13 years out.”
As privatised monopolies, the amount networks can charge customers to make improvements is set by regulator Ofgem, which needs to balance rising customer bills with the need to modernise the system. At the moment every household pays about £311 a year for the cost of network.
The Energy Networks Association, which represents operators, said the charges “have remained broadly flat since 2015 and account for around 7 per cent of the average bill”.
National Grid said it was pressing for licence changes to bring forward projects that have planning permission and are ready to proceed, rather than managing connection requests on a “first come, first served” basis.
It is also investing £9bn on improving connections to green energy in the five years to 2026.
An amnesty that allows customers to leave the register at no cost or a reduced fee to make way for projects that are getting developed is already in place, it added.
“We are working with Ofgem and industry to explore ways to speed up the process,” National Grid said.
But Alight’s Overholm warned the delays needed to be addressed urgently as they are “slowing our growth pace and preventing us from implementing the ambitious strategy that we would otherwise have for the UK”.
“Delays are a real issue for anyone driving the energy transition and wanting to deploy green megawatts quickly in the UK.”
