Thursday16 January
14.00-15:30
Online – Microsoft Teams
NESO has now published the proposed connections reforms it has sent to Ofgem for approval.
This extra grid connections group meeting will discuss whether we should input final points to Ofgem.
The main changes to the consultation have already been announced and so there are few surprises. However, there is more detail in some areas.
- The final spatial technology breakdown was provided in the government’s Clean Power 2030 Action Plan connections annex. The test of ‘CP30 aligned’ will be carried out against that breakdown.
- The expanded grandfathering arrangements were also announced early in an open letter, basically anything with planning by the deadline for the ‘Gate 2 to the whole queue’ exercise, currently scheduled for the end of May. These have been spelt out in more detail [and include a provision for projects that are in appeal…]
Clearly the ability to change these processes is now limited, however, we will discuss what final points we might raise with Ofgem and DESNZ at the working group on the 16th.
In particular, the key issue raised by members that NESO have not acted on, is the need for some allowance for ‘attrition’ in the phase one allocation of connections. NESO’s view is that the 2031-2035 phase will provide the ‘liquidity’ to replace projects that drop out. However, this does risk sending a signal to many projects that we almost certainly will need by 2030 to go slow on development. In some technologies the 2031-2035 pot is also very small.
Concerns have also continued about the lack of clarity on how these changes will be applied at distribution level.
If you are a member of Regen or the ESN and would like to find out more about this working group, please contact Frank (fhodgson@regen.co.uk).
If you are not a member but are interested in finding out more about membership, please find more information here and contact Hannah (hstanley@regen.co.uk) to discuss.
