The reform of grid connections has been difficult and challenging, but the challenges will now shift to building out the newly formed pipeline and the whole process has been a useful lesson for future reforms.
That was one of the key messages from the panel discussion ‘Grid Access in Practice’ at the Clean Energy Summit 2030a two-day conference that started today, organized by our publisher Solar Media, part of Informa.
It comes as UK developers are grappling with a major overhaul of the way energy projects are connected to the grid, being carried out by the National Energy System Operator (NESO).
The process has been plagued by delays and other problems, but progress has been made recently fixed connection dates issued for 37 GW of clean energy to be connected by 2030. Instead of going into the details of the process, panelists discussed the big picture challenges, as well as the successes and positives.
“GB is leading the way among countries struggling with this. It’s a huge challenge in the US and Europe. It feels like the direction we’re taking is the right one. It’s getting much closer to a linkable list of projects that are needed,” said Eleanor Warburton, director for energy systems design and development at energy regulator Ofgem. Ofgem is overseeing the National Energy System Operator’s (NESO) process to reform the UK’s grid connections.
“When you looked at the list before the reform, it was so clear that system operators couldn’t connect that volume to projects.”
She did acknowledge that there were enormous challenges in the process, and said the next set of challenges would be the actual build-out of the infrastructure.
Lisa Woolhouse, head of strategic energy planning at SSE Distribution, one of Britain’s fourteen distribution network operators (DNOs), agreed that the big challenge is the coming years of build-out.
“The challenge for the industry is that we have a lot of networks to deploy in the coming years, and we are likely to see even more curtailment costs. There is also the challenge of connecting all these customers in a short time frame. We are not over the connectivity challenge yet,” she said.
SSE Distribution is part of the Scotland-based energy company SSE.
David Wildash, chief strategy officer of developer Apatura, says the pace of change and reform has been particularly challenging. But that learning and experience should mean that the next set of demand-side reforms should be more efficient.
Panel moderator Jonathan Selwyn, director of developer Bluefield Development, asked Wildash directly if he felt the industry had been listened to during the reform process.
“The lack of ability to look at and develop each individual project was a challenge. Not having access to NESO account managers, not knowing when you would get a response, etc., was frustrating. The frustrations were mainly at the micro level. Every project is important to a developer,” he said.
Looking ahead, Warburton said that now that substantial pre-2030 offers have been made, we should get a clearer picture of what is likely to be built out and come online by then. But looking ahead, she said the thinking right now doesn’t seem to be looking beyond 2035, which is a mistake. “The further ahead you can plan, the better.”
Woolhouse and Warburton both mentioned the importance of the Strategic Spatial Energy Plan (SSEP), NESO’s overall plan for generation and storage in the UK from 2030 to 2050.
Ben Golding, Director of the Clean Power 2030 Unit at the Department for Energy Security and Net Zero (DESNZ), opened the event earlier in the morning with a progress update on the UK’s 2030 decarbonisation targets.
