Opinions and Papers

2025

The New Connections Regime (February 2025)

Connections are ‘paused’ until the new connections regime is in place, i.e., it isn’t possible to obtain a connection at present. That pause affects both transmission and distribution connections. Once the pause has ended, a new regime for both comes into effect and changes the development landscape.

The scale of the change is intended. The new regime aims to...

The Connections Pause (January 2025)

New applications for connections needing a TIA or transmission impact assessment (all plant on all networks over 1MW, shortly to be 5MW) are subject to a pause, ending no later than 31 May 2025.

• NESO, the transmission system operator, has ceased dealing with applications until its new connections regime is in place or, if sooner, 31 May 2025.

   

• The distribution networks (DNOs) will accept applications but...

2024

Emissions Targets and Connection (December 2024)

We have yet another new emissions target – by 2035 the UK has undertaken to reduce emissions by 81%.

That target, announced at COP 2024, wasn’t the government picking straws out of the wind. It was the target recommended by the Climate Change Committee, based on its advice for the Seventh Carbon Budget to be published in February. At the same time, the UK will produce its Nationally Determined Contribution, setting out policies to achieve...

Corporate PPAs (November 2024)

Corporate power purchase agreements (CPPAs) seem simple and desirable. Desirable to the customer (a mid-to-large commercial enterprise) that wants to be able to point to a specific renewable source of power that ‘belongs’ to it and say that wind farm or that solar farm supplies it.

This part of the arrangement might be simple. Forever Blue Limited (FB) produces renewable power and Vast Enterprises Limited (VEL) wants to buy it. They contract for a price and the...

Pricing in Waste (October 2024⁽²⁾)

Battery project developers need to think about waste. To be exact, they need to consider – and factor into their financial models – the costs to be incurred when any battery project reaches the end of its working life.

A developer who adopts a wait-and-see attitude – on the basis that these are unknown future costs and the technicalities of disposal are uncertain - may find funding harder to attract. The reason is obvious: the project plan and financial model has a black hole. If the black hole is small, well, there’s no harm. But this particular...

The Connections Solution(s) (October 2024)

The inability to connect new projects to the networks has been a major problem for developers for the past few years. In many cases proposed projects have foundered and funding for renewables and storage has become harder to obtain. The fault is, we were told, that there is insufficient capacity on the networks and that the needed additional infrastructure would not be available until the mid-to-late 2030s.

The distribution networks came up with an interim workaround to the problem in about May 2023. That workaround took several months to implement, again causing projects to founder and making financing...

Helping the 2030 Target (August 2024)

Previous Updates have argued that Labour’s target of 100% zero carbon electricity by 2030 won’t be met. There are things it could do to get us closer than its current plans. To see exactly what they would be involves making some grand assumptions, summing the GWs available and deducting GWs needed.

The Great Grid Upgrade (Grand Assumption No 1)

NGC’s “Great Grid Upgrade” is under way, from Hinkley Point (completion due in 2026), across East Anglia, (Norwich to Tilbury), Suffolk and Kent, connecting new...

Labour’s 2030 Commitments (July 2024)

We have a (repeated) commitment from the new Secretary of State for Energy¹ that electricity will be zero carbon by 2030. The commitment is about electricity not heat. The question to be asked, less ‘of’ than ‘about’ the man who is now in charge of all things energy, is whether the commitment is plausible.

Well yes, says the Secretary of State, because in the Energy Department is an outfit dubbed ‘Mission Control’ which will work with, inter alia, National Grid and ESO to “speed up the connection of new power infrastructure”.

Fine, but in May 2023 the ENA...

When Can Projects Connect? (May 2024)

If a solar, onshore wind or a project with another technology seeks to generate over a network (almost all must do so) the answer to the question when it can connect is either the mid-to-late 2030s (so no use to current contenders) or much earlier if, but only if, batteries connect sooner and relieve the crush on the relevant network.

After two plus years of the networks faffing around, batteries should be connecting now: we keep being told it will be one or...