Ofgem asks batteries for money to unblock the connection queue
Victoria Shinder2 min readBritain's energy regulator is moving to thin the queue of battery storage projects waiting for a grid connection, by asking for more financial commitment from developers. Energy-Storage.news reports it at https://www.energy-storage.news/uk-regulator-looks-to-cut-down-bess-interconnection-backlog-with-extra-financial-commitment/.
The cause is specific. Protections written for projects that had already reached a certain stage of development meant that, when the queue was reordered, the front of it did not change at all for batteries. A joint letter from energy minister Michael Shanks and Ofgem's director general for infrastructure, Akshay Kaul, says those protections, combined with how quickly the technology clears planning, produced a "materially higher level of battery progression to Gate 2 than anticipated".
What it means
A queue reform that grandfathers the existing queue reforms nothing at the front. The intent was to prioritise projects the system needs; the effect, where protections applied, was to preserve the order that already existed. That is not a drafting slip so much as the standard tension in any transition rule: the more you protect those who complied with the old rules, the less the new ones bite where the backlog is worst.
Batteries hit this harder than anything else because they are fast. A technology that moves through planning quickly accumulates eligibility quickly, so a stage-based protection admits far more of it than a slower technology - which is the mechanism the letter is describing, stated as a surprise about volume.
Asking for money is the blunt instrument that works. Financial commitment filters on seriousness without a regulator having to judge which projects are real, which is the judgement nobody wants to make case by case.
⚠️ This is the regulator's direction of travel as reported, not a final decision, and the piece is an extract from a sister publication. The thresholds that would matter to a developer are not reported here.