Without major upgrades to the grid, the UK will fall well behind in the race to achieve Net Zero status, National Grid announced earlier this year.
With a 50% rise in demand for electricity expected by 2035, five ‘fundamental’ areas will need to be addressed:
- Reforms to the UK’s planning system, including classifying energy-related schemes as Nationally Significant Infrastructure Projects (NSIPS), reducing timescales on consents for energy projects, and providing a Strategic Spacial Energy Plan by 2025 to assess what infrastructure is needed and where.
- Overhauling regulators’ objectives, investing in regulatory frameworks and building up a “competitive market” to justify a major transmission network.
- Transformation of the renewable energy process
- Putting communities and consumers first, eg. rewarding those communities living in proximity to renewable energy infrastructure, and reforming the retail market, but also ensuring that lower income housholds are protected.
- Building up the supply chain capacity: attracting and incentivising clean energy manufacturers
Given that 2035 will be here before we know it, will we be ready to deal with a 50% rise in demand for electricity? Or will we fall at the first post?
The UK urgently requires additional capacity to help meet those future needs. If you are looking for a site that might be suitable for storing clean energy, or if you think you already have such a site, please talk to BTS.
Current + ‘UK needs “fundamental step-change to compete in race for clean investment, says National Grid’, Lena Dias Martins (15 May 2023)
