Demand connections reform – prioritisation, flexibility and fairness in the grid queue

 The government has set out proposals to introduce prioritisation mechanisms for demand, which Regen supports. Key points we made in our response include:

• We are  concerned by the lack of detail in the proposals. DESNZ should publish more information on the nature of the connections queue, including its composition by sector, capacity, location and anticipated connection dates.
• We urge DESNZ to reconsider the role of local democratic input and, in particular, input from local authorities: under current proposals, areas outside Mayoral Strategic Authorities cannot submit projects for strategic designation. For example, this would mean there would be no route for local authorities along the south coast of England to put forward ports for strategic prioritisation.
• On data centres, we support aligning network planning with a government data centre strategy. We think this should be co-developed with NESO taking into account both energy and digital infrastructure considerations.
• We strongly support the development of flexible connections for demand at transmission and distribution level, but oppose mandating flexible connections for data centres.
• We are cautious around the use of auctions – our key concerns are that the cost to secure a connection would not reflect the costs of providing the capacity and that auctions would likely favour developers with greatest financial resources.

In our response to Ofgem’s call for input we responded to proposals around queue entry and membership criteria. We recommended:

• Carefully designed financial commitments linked to project milestones, applied consistently at transmission and distribution.
• Requiring outline planning as part of readiness criteria.
• Rapid action to enable demand customers to have greater ability to self-build.
• Further work to develop practical options for flexible connections utilising onsite storage and generation.