New energy rules will help renewable energy projects such as wind farms to connect to the national grid

New rules to revamp the way power plants get connected to the UK’s power grid have been proposed by Energy and Climate Secretary Ed Miliband. Miliband announced, as part of the Government’s Low Carbon Transition Plan in July, that the Government would reform the previous system of projects getting a connection date on a first come, first served basis regardless of when the project would start generating energy.

This meant some wind farms were given connection dates years after when they were due to start producing electricity. This latest consultation offers industry a say on three options for how the new system will work.The consultation details

The shake-up will help new projects waiting to get a date to feed electricity into the grid to get out of the queue, and will in particular help renewable energy projects such as wind farms.

There is currently over 60 GW of new generation capacity – around 200 projects – that are waiting to be connected to the grid, including around 17 GW from renewable sources.

The proposed scheme will also give investors confidence that projects will be given a connection date that fits in with their project development timeline.