Full Support
Power Initiatives would like to add our full support to REGEN’s open letter to Nick Winser, the new Electricity Networks Minister, where they outlined the issues affecting power generation projects and the delays in getting connections to the grid.
Regen is a not-for-profit centre of energy expertise and market insight whose mission is to transform the world’s energy systems for a zero-carbon future. Its 200-plus members are companies driving the Net Zero vision.
Constraint Delays
The letter outlines the issue affecting their members and states clearly how all projects over 1MW seeking to connect to the distribution network are facing constraint delays of up to a decade.
Our own experience of the delay in connection to the grid can endorse this view with a number of projects within our current BESS pipeline being hit with connection date delays beyond 2028.
Predicted consumption of electricity in the UK
The need to speed up the process is essential as the predicted consumption of electricity in the UK will double to between 450 and 500TWh by 2035, driven by the move to eliminate fossil fuel in the generation mix, energy security and the increased uptake of Electric Vehicles. Achieving this will require a substantial increase in generation capacity and investment in the electricity transmission and distribution networks.
Improvements
Regen has called for two improvements, faster investment in the transmission network and a CEO-led workable plan from network and system operators to deploy realistic procedures to address the constraints holding back developments and projects.
A further report from Regen called Future Energy Scenarios (FES) 2022 detailed an assessment of the energy system’s decarbonisation journey. The report concluded that the technical engineering solutions required for a fully decarbonised electricity system to work included energy storage and innovative technologies at the heart of the delivery.
Development Platform
Power Initiatives currently have renewable and battery storage projects for developers and investors in our Development Platform of more than 300MW and this Regen initiative is much needed for several of these critical sites to move ahead of the curve to contribute to the goal of Net Zero.
