Reform of Great Britain’s grid connections queue missed deadlines and was marred by inaccurate offers, poor developer engagement and digitalization issues, according to Ofgem. The regulator nevertheless found NESO delivered a “good performance” overall, meeting or exceeding expectations in seven of eight performance obligations.
Reform of Great Britain’s connections queue failed on multiple counts, according to the latest regulator assessment of grid operator NESO’s performance. The assessment confirms issues UK developers have been highlighting throughout the process.
NESO has been engaged in reform to change Great Britain’s grid connection queue from a first come, first served methodology to a first ready, first served approach that takes consideration of system needs.
The grid operator was successful in significantly reducing an oversubscribed queue, including clearing 153 GW of battery energy storage system capacity. However, developers have been sounding alarm bells over the challenges the process presented, previously telling pv magazine that data issues have meant more work, while a lack of transparency made decision making hard.
In an interview in the September issue of pv magazine Global, Solar Energy UK chief executive Chris Hewett commented: “On the one hand, we’ve had connection reform and lots of people have offers. Lots of those offers are way higher than they were expecting, and some of them are wrong, and some are millions of pounds in excess of what they were suggested.”
