Only 20% of renewable projects come to fruition

These recent findings raise – or reiterate – concerns about the speed of renewables development in the UK. Cornwall Insight’s analysis suggests that “streamlining the grid connection process and addressing speculative applications will be crucial to ensure a more efficient and successful pathway for renewable energy projects”.

The connection queue haunts the industry

In 2023, Centrica raised the issue of ghost projects, when developers submit multiple applications for many sites with the expectation that only a couple will connect. These speculative and duplicate applications saw the connection queue increase.

Published Octopus Ending the Blockade: One year later last week (June 17), calling speculative applications for “zombie” projects. To solve the problem, it called for an open-source, self-service process to enable better network analysis so that network capacity can be best utilized.

In November 2023, Ofgem announced that it would allow National Grid ESO to end projects that are blocking the queue of grid connections by implementing queue management steps. Phasing, meaning projects that do not meet certain requirements will be removed from the queue, has been introduced in all transmission network connection contracts with a post-November 2025 connection date.

ESO seeks to remove speculative projects from the queue to allow projects closer to “shovel readiness”, enabling investments in the right infrastructure, in the right order. However, a report published by the Environmental Audit Committee (EAC) showed that milestones put in place by Ofgem and ESO have not yet reduced the length of the queue.

Dolton said Current±: “While we are yet to see the impact of Ofgem’s queue management reforms on the wider pipeline, it is expected that these measures will act to ease the backlog of projects entering planning and therefore seeking a grid connection. This is especially true given that these reforms apply both to the queue of future connections and to existing projects awaiting connections.”

A new “closed window” process is established, which evaluates new projects differently, but also eliminates those already in the queue that do not meet the new requirements.

As Hugh Taylor, CEO of Roadnight Taylor, explained in a recent blog post on Current±, in order to move to Gate 2 in the connection queue, a company must be prepared to submit planning permission within a reasonable timescale with agreed land options. These become milestones and if not met within the set time frames, offers may be terminated with cancellation fees applied.

Dolton added: “These conditions are likely to help tackle backlog applications as they will implement set criteria – such as securing land rights for the proposed location and submission dates for planning permission applications – for projects wishing to connect. However, as before, it remains to be seen how soon and at what scale we will see changes in the connection queue as a result of these changes.”