“SHOVEL-READY” clean energy projects will jump the queue to connect to the National Grid on Monday under major reforms that open the door to “rampant profiteering, corruption and chaos,” according to campaigners.
The public body responsible for Britain’s electricity and gas networks has ditched its first-come-first-served system to prioritise schemes that help Labour meet its Net Zero 2030 goals and boost the economy instead.
Fuel poverty campaigners called for “real accountability” so vote-winning blank cheques aren’t written out to companies with the highest lobbying budgets.
The National Energy System Operator (Neso) will reveal which of some 3,000 both demand-and-supply projects have been selected to join the priority queue on Monday.
End Fuel Poverty Coalition co-ordinator Simon Francis welcomed reforms to the grid connection system but said that “faster grid access must be matched by real accountability for how network firms and energy generators spend and profit.
“This reform must not become an excuse for blank cheque infrastructure spending that inflates standing charges while delivering poor value for households.
“And it must be a fair process, so it’s not just a case of those projects with a healthy lobbying budget get preferential treatment.
“Community energy projects, which deliver cheaper power for customers and have local control and accountability built in, must not be excluded or pushed to the bottom of the queue.
“To truly fix Britain’s broken energy system, we need grid reform, fair pricing, investment in energy efficiency and a social tariff to ensure the transition benefits everyone — not just big investors.”
Energy Secretary Ed Miliband described the move as an “ambitious, once-in-a-generation reforms to clean up the queue.”
Previous rules meant that every project, whether it was ready or not, took up space in the queue.
This led to the line growing tenfold in the last five years, with more than 700 gigawatts (GW) of generation and storage projects waiting for grid access, which is around four times greater than what is needed to meet the clean power by 2030 target.
Under the new process, projects are prioritised if they are aligned to national energy targets and are ready to build, such as those with planning permission or land rights.
But the reforms also mean hundreds of projects in the old queue will be pushed back and will no longer be given a connection date.
Neso’s chief operating officer Kayte O’Neill said: “Transforming the grid connections process is a vital first step in unlocking the capacity needs for a secure, affordable energy transition.
“These changes will cut grid bottlenecks by prioritising ready-to-build projects, giving certainty about when and where they can connect and unlocking billions in clean energy investment.”
But Communist Party general secretary Robert Griffiths warned: “On-the-hoof measures to meet short-term clean energy goals open the door to rampant profiteering, corruption and chaos — they are no substitute for longer-term planning under democratic control.
“In the short-term, a planned and massive rollout of solar panelling led and directed by the public sector would create millions of jobs and training places, boost clean energy output, reduce pressure on the National Grid and help prepare the way for renationalisation of the greedy, wasteful and anti-planet gas and electricity monopolies.”
Neso said that those that meet the criteria for the priority queue together have the capacity to provide 283GW to the grid by 2035.
They include generation and storage projects providing 132GW which will help to reach the government’s clean power by 2030 target.
The highest capacity of these will be provided by battery projects at 82GW followed by offshore wind at 70GW, solar projects at 59GW and onshore wind at 18GW.
Smaller amounts of capacity will come from other types of projects such as long-duration electricity storage, interconnectors, nuclear, tidal and unabated gas.
Elsewhere, 99GW of projects that will take power from the grid such as data centres, industrial sites and EV charging hubs by 2035 have been offered a connection offer after the government asked no limits to be set on the demand side.