Application Blockage Slows the UK Green Energy Transition

The move from fossil fuels to renewable energy is proving anything but easy. At least in the UK, lack of investment from previous governments that have failed to prepare for the transition means that there is a tremendous amount of work to do. The fossil fuel energy grid has always relied upon relatively few power stations around the country being linked up to the grid as energy providers. With renewable energy, the number of providers has exploded from both domestic and commercial operations. Connecting new providers to the network, especially larger commercial providers takes a lot of work and requires approvals. However, the process of approvals in the UK is currently so bad that one of the largest suppliers is considering investing elsewhere.

In an interview with the Daily Telegraph, Octopus Energy Chief executive Greg Jackson called for the UK government to relax those restrictions or the company would be forced to look elsewhere to invest. In the article, Jackson stated, “We have got access to billions of pounds of capital. We’d like to deploy that here in the UK but capital goes where it can be deployed. At the moment, it is easier to build a lot of infrastructure in France and Germany than here in the UK. There’s a solar farm we want to build in County Durham and we won’t get a grid connection until 2037. That’s 13 years where that capital can’t be deployed. And at the same time, we can deploy capital in other countries.”

At the moment, applications to connect to the grid are on a first come, first served basis. Every project is assessed as it applies, rather than how close to completion it is. This has created a backlog of applications, including large, viable projects from established providers. According to the article, last autumn, both Ofgem and ESO said that they would tackle those long wait times by removing unrealistic applications from the queue. Some developers have launched legal action to prevent this change from happening, which has slowed the process further.

Amir Cohen CEO of EGM (Electrical Grid Monitoring) added to the debate by saying, “The energy transition requires a formerly centralised grid that previously connected with just 100 power stations to connect with about 300,000 widely dispersed power sources and this will involve significant changes. Achieving the five-point plan is still possible but will require both more efficient permitting and approvals for renewables and more efficient use of existing networks to free up space for renewables on transmission lines.”

Cohen then goes on to explain how the logjam of applications could be fixed, “We need streamlined permitting processes and ‘joined-up’ infrastructure planning so that electric grids and renewables are designed to intersect around bringing clean power from more places to more people. Yet bringing renewables online requires more than just interconnections; we need to stamp out waste on existing grids to free up space for renewable power, and stop renewables being needlessly curtailed during peak periods. For example, 20% of existing grid capacity is currently wasted because operators set overly cautious capacity limits that fail to take into account how cooler conditions allow power lines to safely carry more current; this means Independent System Operators currently cannot purchase the cheapest and cleanest power from any source due to excessive capacity constraints on transmission lines. For example, during a pilot project in Israel, we were able to help the operator safely increase network capacity by 18% by using sensors and data analytics to monitor everything from temperature to voltage in real-time. Smarter use of UK grids could free up space to integrate more clean power into grids and allow ISO’s to buy the cheapest and greenest power from any source without unnecessary constraints.”