NESO asks Ofgem to move the Gate 2 Phase 1 offer deadline to 31 October
Victoria Shinder2 min readGreat Britain's National Energy System Operator has asked the regulator Ofgem for a second extension to the deadline for issuing Gate 2 Phase 1 connection offers, the batch at the centre of the reform of the grid connection queue. In a letter dated 25 September, NESO asks for the deadline, which Ofgem had already moved to 30 September, to become 31 October 2026.
NESO says it has issued roughly 75% of the offers needed for 2030. The extra time is needed for two reasons. On 15 July, National Grid Electricity Transmission told NESO it would need two more weeks for its transmission owner construction offers covering small and medium embedded grid supply points, and four more weeks for transmission-connected and large embedded projects, citing complexity and further network redesign. Separately, a smaller number of offers are being issued later at customers' request after pre-offer discussions.
The letter puts numbers on the scale. Up to 37 construction offers from National Grid may be affected, about 10% of all Gate 2 Phase 1 offers, plus around 25 offers delayed for other reasons. For distribution network operators in England and Wales, 133 of 158 offers have been issued.
NESO acknowledges that some customers will not have received offers by the mid-September date in the joint industry plan, and that the impact will be mixed: small for projects where timing is not critical, larger for those that need the certainty of a firm offer. It says it will contact affected customers once it has National Grid's construction offer, before issuing its own, and will prioritise the most affected projects. It plans a run rate of 10 to 15 offers a week, which it says it has achieved in recent weeks, and is not asking to move any later dates, including those for Phase 2.
What it means
The connection reform was meant to replace a first-come queue with firm dates. A month's slip on about 60 offers is small against the whole, but it lands on exactly the projects the reform was supposed to give certainty to, and it is the second extension of the same deadline.