Keeping the lights on while meeting green energy targets will require £60 billion to fix the UK's electricity grid, report warns
Keeping the lights on while meeting green energy targets will need a £58billion network expansion to get the power where it is needed, a report warned yesterday.
Britain's electricity grid operator said a predicted 65 per cent increase in demand by 2035 will require the 'once in a generation' investment.
This includes an 'electrical spine' reaching from Peterhead in north-east Scotland to Merseyside to bring power south from North Sea windfarms.
Fintan Slye, executive director of the Electricity System Operator (ESO), insisted that 'swift, co-ordinated and lasting action' was needed soon.
While the report is likely to raise fears of more pylons springing up across the countryside, it includes detailed recommendations of where new infrastructure is needed or existing connections upgraded which reveal that three-quarters of the new connections will be using undersea cables.
Keeping the lights on while meeting green energy targets will need a £58billion network expansion to get the power where it is needed, a report warned yesterday
Britain's electricity grid operator said a predicted 65 per cent increase in demand by 2035 will require the 'once in a generation' investment
The new strategy is designed to harness a major expansion in green energy that will see Britain's offshore windfarm capacity growing to become the biggest in Europe and larger even than the USA's.
But 'bottlenecks' in the current grid system prevent renewable electricity being transported from where it is generated to where it is used.
Britain's electricity grid, which dates back to the 1950s, was designed around coal-fired power stations in the centre of the country, which has required only small upgrades since.
But growth in the demand for power from the grid will accelerate over the next decade as motorists switch to electric cars and more heating needs are met through electricity rather than gas.
'The current grid is reaching its capacity and is unable to transport much more electricity,' the report said.
'Currently, energy is being wasted as the grid cannot transport it to where it can be used.
'Because of these bottlenecks, as the system operator, we sometimes have to ask wind farms to switch off to prevent the grid becoming overloaded – wasting cheap, sustainable, home-grown wind power.'
The plans are in addition to £60billion of investment in infrastructure needed by 2030 that was laid out in a previous report, but which the new document says will 'only get Britain so far in its journey towards producing the greener and cheaper electricity that will be needed'.
'Great Britain is about to embark upon the biggest change to the electricity network since the high voltage grid was established back in the 1950s,' it said.
Last night a Department for Energy Security and Net Zero spokesman said: 'These are preliminary plans published by the Electricity Systems Operator. Any projects taken forward would be required to progress through a robust planning process.'
