ENA Connections Blog: Reflecting on a year of progress

Tuesday marked the final Connections Delivery Board (CDB) of 2024. Ofgem’s CDB was formed late last year to accelerate a fair and faster connections process as outlined in the Connections Action Plan, led by Ofgem and DESNZ.

Through this forum, ENA, NESO, all of Britain’s networks, and key stakeholders have delivered on this plan together.

This year we’ve seen significant change, including the introduction of technical limit offers, queue management at transmission, two CUSC code modifications being brought forward and a requirement to meet the government’s target of clean power by 2030 - just to name a few.

With nearly five years to go until the government’s 2030 clean power target, connecting low carbon electricity generation to the grid has never been more important.

In the meantime, the networks are busy delivering connections at pace with more than 5GW connected since April this year. Projects are exiting the queue through effective queue management, with more than 11GW now being removed at distribution.

Celebrating success

It was this time last year that Ofgem’s Connections Action Plan was published, and it certainly was ambitious.

I am pleased to say Britain’s networks are delivering the specific reform actions identified in the plan, with the benefits being seen by customers seeking to connect to networks. In case you missed them, here are some of the key areas of progress:

• All distribution network operators have implemented queue management, moving to ‘first ready, first connected’.
• Generation and storage customers connecting to the distribution network, but dependent on transmission works, are now being accelerated by the innovative ‘technical limits’ solution, enabling them to connect ahead of transmission works under non-firm agreements.
• Networks have revised the way distribution connected battery storage is modelled on the networks, releasing capacity and using existing network more efficiently for extra storage and other customers to connect.
• This month all networks will publish a minimum, consistent set of data to help inform customers about network and queue status before they apply, known as a digital view of connections, with a collated index of this data hosted on ENA’s website.

Ultimately, this effort is to support customers getting their projects connected to the grid, and through these reforms, nearly 2400 customers have had their projects connected, accelerated, made more efficient, or have seen non-progressing projects in front of them removed from the queue.

For more details on the benefits which we have achieved throughout this year please visit our new benefits tracker.

The 12 consultations of Christmas

Well, eight, but the pace of change is certainly not slowing down.

In recent weeks, we have seen a deluge of significant consultations driving forward connections solutions. Firstly, NESO issued TMO4+ final code modification and methodologies consultations as well as a call for input on financial instruments. All have now closed.

Ofgem has published consultations for the end-to-end review of connection incentives and proposed licence changes required to enable TMO4+ connections reform. For anyone who is keen to provide input, Ofgem’s consultations are still open until early January.

The Strategic Connections Group (SCG) has also concluded its consultation and stakeholder engagement activities for raising queue entry requirements at distribution.

And we are also expecting the government’s plan on clean power very soon...

Looking ahead into the new year, the SCG queue entry working group have concluded their design based on stakeholder feedback and, supported by the CDB, will be implementing these changes as of 1 January 2025.

The modifications will primarily affect generation connections, and are seeking to reduce the impact of speculative projects on the progress of the queue.

The result is a more efficient and effective process for all customers. The changes include a requirement for:

• Letter of authority with a head of terms
• Detailed site drawing
• Project plan
• Mandatory part four G99 standard application form completion

More details of the changes can be found on our website under our recent webinar slide deck.

Get involved

In the new year, the Strategic Connections Group will be hosting another webinar in January. Sign up for our newsletter and follow us on LinkedIn to be notified when registration goes live.

If you’d like to stay up-to-date on progress, visit our connections data webpage. Here you can find the new benefits tracker dashboard, joint transmission and distribution databook and one-stop-shop signposting to all networks’ online resources and tools.

Thank you to everyone who has contributed to these reform programmes, consultations, or the SCG webinars this year. Your views are being heard and are critical in shaping a clean energy future.

I’d also like to thank the members of our Strategic Connections Group for their hard work in accelerating grid connections. The achievements are clear to see and I look forward to continued progress in 2025, which will include a major collective focus on the implementation of TM04+ and I am sure further wider reform solutions as well.

In the meantime, I hope everyone gets an opportunity for a break before another busy year and enjoys at least as many mince pies as they do consultation responses this festive period.