Government offshore wind targets are being held back by the lengthy process of connecting new projects to the grid, an independent report claimed on Wednesday.
“Grid connections are increasingly becoming the rate-limiting factor for our offshore wind deployment going forward,” wrote Tim Pick, the UK’s government-appointed offshore wind champion.
Despite the government laying out plans to speed up the process of approving new renewable projects on last Thursday’s ‘Green Day,’ Pick called for more to be done as the UK targets 50GW of offshore capacity by 2030 - up from 8.4GW as of December.
“The planning consent processes […] needs to be put on a very high priority footing,” he said.
“If you take just one message from this report, it should be the urgent need to upgrade our national grid for a world of high renewables penetration.”
According to a February analysis by National Grid PLC (LSE:NG.)’s system operating wing, just 30 to 40% of projects waiting for approval make it to fruition, since they are assessed on a first-come-first-served basis.
“This can result in projects further up the queue holding back those that are more readily able to supply Great Britain,” it wrote, adding the UK had more than three times as much power as was needed in the pipeline in February.
Trade body Renewable UK said the report came “at a time when international competition from the US, EU and other markets has never been fiercer”.
It added the UK needed to create “the right investment environment” to combat the billions of pounds offered in subsidies by the US and EU.