Commenting on today’s announcement by National Grid ESO of reforms to speed up the rate at which renewable energy projects can connect to the grid, RenewableUK’s Director of Future Electricity Systems, Barnaby Wharton, said:

“This announcement is a significant step forward, as it will unlock new clean energy capacity faster by letting projects which are ready to connect to the grid move ahead of projects that simply aren’t making progress. Rather than allowing speculative bids for grid connections to pile up and create the backlog, these reforms mean that inactive or unready schemes will no longer be allowed to block projects which are ready to go live.  

“It’s one of a number of measures which we’ve been calling for as a matter of urgency, to enable us to connect vital clean energy projects to the grid faster, as some offshore wind farms are currently having to wait for more than ten years to do so.

“Grid connection delays are holding back £15 billion of investment in offshore wind alone over the course of this decade, at the very time when we need to boost our energy security as quickly as possible and provide cheap power for consumers to tackle the cost of living crisis.  

“The next key step forward would be for Ministers to sign off the amendment to the Energy Bill currently going through Parliament to give the regulator Ofgem a new remit which specifically puts achieving the Government’s net zero goal at the heart of every decision it takes. This would unlock vital investment in our electricity network much faster”.