Around 62GW of projects in the queue to connect to the grid are only in the scoping phase and may not even have land rights or planning consent applications in, according to a report, holding back to UK’s drive for greater energy security and net zero.
The Centrica commissioned report explored the existing queue in place for Transmission Entry Capacity (TEC) in the UK, discovering that it is up to four times oversubscribed with the level of this worsening significantly over the last few years. The queue has 371GW projects in it, which would be more than enough to substantially boost the UK’s energy security, with 114GW having their connection date before 2029 – however, as stated, a substantial number (62GW) are “phantom power projects”.
“Not only do these ‘developers’ not have the money to develop,” explained Centrica CEO, Chris O’Shea. “But many also don’t even have planning permission or land rights – they’re gambling that holding a space in the queue will make them rich.”
With Ofgem exploring rule changes to help address queue issues that would see the Electricity System Operator (ESO) able to remove projects from the queue should they miss key milestones, the report also assessed what sort of impact this could have. If applied to projects already in the queue, rather than just new ones entering into it, an additional 12GW of green power could be added to the system over the short-term through creating space for projects that are ready to progress. If, instead, only applying the rule change to future projects this benefit would not materialize.
O’Shea continued: “The system was created for a different time, when a small number of large projects were connected each year. Our current approach is not fit for purpose and needs urgent reform. Urgently introducing an industry rule change and applying it to the current queue, so that existing phantom projects lose their place when they miss milestones, would show that Ofgem were helping to reduce costs for consumers, to drive the energy transition and to improve the UK’s energy security.”
