Miliband proposes power grid revamp

The secretary hopes that the shake-up, part of the government’s Low Carbon Transition Plan, will help new projects get onto the grid quicker.

According to the Department for Energy and Climate Change (DECC), there are around 200 projects, with a potential generation capacity of over 60GW, waiting to be connected to the grid. 17GW of this comes from renewable sources.

The previous system saw 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.

To that effect DECC has launched a consultation into what it has identified as the three options for now the new system will work.

The models are:

• Connect and Manage (Socialised) - costs will be shared between all users of the network.
• Connect and Manage (Hybrid): A model that targets some, but not all, of the additional constraint costs on new entrant power stations.
• Connect and Manage (Shared Cost and Commitment) - A model that offers the choice to new and existing power stations to commit to the network (which is helpful to Grid in terms of long term management of system) in return for greater certainty over charges, or to opt out and be exposed to additional constraint costs.

Ed Miliband said: “Access to the electricity grid has been one of the key barriers to the generation of renewable energy in this country. We are determined to resolve this issue. That is why we took powers to do so in the Energy Act and today we are setting out our proposals.”

The consultation is open until 17 November 2009.