Electricity Network Connection Initiatives

The recent TheEconomist Newspaper Limited report on the continuing decarbonisation of the UK’s electricity grid was characteristically authoritative in general and really captured the scale of some of the challenges. The report acknowledges the UK’s leading position in the international #netzero transition and examined the proposals outlined in the Winser review – however, its call to ‘squeeze’ efficiency from the existing grid and accelerate connections made me think it would be helpful to explain some of the initiatives DNOs have already begun to facilitate just that, alongside their ambitious plans for the future.?

ENA’s report, which we published at the end of last year, Rising to Britian’s Net Zero Challenge, showed the scale of the transition under way and the measures DNOs are proposing to meet the challenge. The unprecedented surge in applications for network connections, which have tripled between 2019 and 2023, has created a situation where there is 252GW more generation and supply capacity in the queue today than is required by 2050 according to the system operator’s Future Energy Scenarios. Simply put, connecting every project in the queue is not what Britain needs. Instead, and working with industry, the regulator, government and our partners, we proposed a six step work plan, designed to build on the existing connections strategies from government, Ofgem and the National Grid ESO .???

Four steps were already begun in 2023:???

• Releasing up to 90GW of capacity by cleaning up the queue and actively managing a “first ready, first connected” process.??
• Accelerating up to 70GW of applications by allowing some applicants to connect faster, before enabling works are completed. We will do this through flexible contracts – getting more customers onto the network faster and in a fairer way. ??
• Releasing nearly 3GW of capacity by treating storage differently. Storage projects are increasing faster than any other technology – up 5,930% from 2019-2023. Because of the way they’re currently connected, they contribute significantly to network capacity constraints. Network operators are changing the modelling and assumptions for storage projects at both transmission and distribution level, to better align with actual usage patterns.?
• Releasing 46GW of capacity by making network planning processes more coordinated and realistic. By improved construction planning assumptions, and a reformed transmission connections framework will allow for a more efficient process that is not hindered by high application volumes and customer attrition from the queue. ? ? ?

The two additional steps we will work with government, Ofgem and our partners to achieve are:???

• Strengthening and tighten the application process. We will do this by making the application process more discerning – providing more information to the market, requesting more data from applicants, and standardising pre-application engagement.??
• Further improving coordination between transmission and distribution operators – Given the increasing interdependence between connections at distribution and transmission levels, network operators are developing new ways to improve coordination between distribution network operators and transmission operators.??

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The report also identifies the need for national policy reforms. Mostly urgently, we want to work with government on planning reforms that address the severe delays to infrastructure upgrades caused by the planning approvals and consenting process.? ?

The Economist’s piece is a great primer on many elements of this challenge and they are entirely correct that we’re at a pivotal time in the grid’s net zero transition. To find out more about DNO’s ongoing work and how the transition can go even faster, take a look at energynetworks.org/improvingconnections.?