The House of Lords Industry and Regulators Committee has warned the Government that unless it drastically steps up the scale and pace of building more energy generation and network infrastructure it is in danger of missing its clean power target of decarbonising the electricity system by at least 95% by 2030.
- Report: Power struggle: Delivering Great Britain’s electricity grid infrastructure (PDF)
- Report: Power struggle: Delivering Great Britain’s electricity grid infrastructure (HTML)
- Inquiry: The energy grid and grid connections
- Industry and Regulators Committee
THe Committee's Report
In its report Power struggle: Delivering Great Britain’s electricity grid infrastructure, published today (Wednesday 4 June), the Industry and Regulators Committee also suggested that regional zonal pricing should enable better use of existing grid capacity and lower the cost of electricity, provided that the transition and its risks are managed well.
The report also welcomes Ofgem’s decision to prioritise projects that are strategically necessary to meet the clean power target and warns that without greater skills, resources and a more strategic approach, the planning system will remain a key barrier to delivering the infrastructure needed.
Key findings
The Committee also found:
- The Government should clarify what its drive for growth means for Ofgem’s other responsibilities;
- reforms to the queue to connect to the grid are welcome but are currently too tightly focussed on projects needed before 2030, meaning other projects, such as solar and battery storage, might be held back;
- greater strategic planning of the energy system should help to speed up planning and regulatory approvals for new grid projects;
- the Government will need to assess carefully the impacts of zonal pricing on generators and consumers that are unable to move in response to price changes.
As a result, the Committee is calling on the Government to:
- publish key metrics for meeting the clean power target every six months, including the successful delivery of grid projects;
- provide a clear steer on how Ofgem should balance the competing objectives of affordable energy bills, encouraging investment to decarbonise the energy system and ensuring secure energy supplies;
- ring-fence revenues raised by planning-related fees for use by local planning authorities;
- as part of the Industrial Strategy, set out whether it intends to prioritise electricity grid connections for strategically important sectors or businesses.
- as part of the 10 Year Infrastructure Strategy, set out how different sectoral strategic plans will interact and how conflicts between them will be managed;
- consider whether transitional support should be provided to generators and consumers who may be adversely affected by zonal pricing.
Chair's comments
Chair of the Committee, Baroness Taylor of Bolton said:
'The electricity grid is an essential part of modern life for households, businesses and transport links. Recent outages in Spain, Portugal and Heathrow have shown the devastating disruption that failures can cause.
'Given the scale of changes needed to the planning, regulation and delivery of energy infrastructure, and the UK's historic record of delivering major infrastructure projects, our report questions the feasibility of meeting the clean power target.
'Time is already running out, and there is no room for complacency. The Government and the sector must ramp up their efforts to have a chance of success.'
Source: UK Parliament
