Nearly half of energy professionals view grid infrastructure and storage limitations as the biggest barrier to achieving net zero, according to a new survey conducted at Cornwall Insight’s CI Live conference. With policy uncertainty and consumer engagement also big concerns.
The findings come as hundreds of projects in the generation connection queue begin receiving notifications on the status of their applications this week, a milestone that has brought renewed attention to the scale of grid constraints facing developers.
The poll gathered responses from 103 (30%) of the attendees and found 48% see grid and storage as the top challenge. Policy uncertainty and the investment climate came second at 26%, followed by consumer engagement and behavioural change (21%), and workforce capacity (5%).
With many projects awaiting clarity on when, or even if, they can connect, the survey results underline the industry’s continued frustration with the bottlenecks slowing the UK’s transition. Without faster connections and better planning, the UK risks missing its 2030 clean power target and falling short of net zero by 2050.
As the deployment of renewable generation accelerates and electrification grows, Britain’s electricity system faces growing pressure. The network was built for large, fuel-based power stations near demand centres, yet much of today’s renewable energy is generated far from where it is consumed. This mismatch is creating grid constraints, where power cannot move freely across the system.
Building new transmission infrastructure can take up to a decade, with as many as seven years spent in planning, according to the Energy Networks Association. Historic first-come, first-served grid connection rules have also slowed progress, with non-viable projects bottlenecking the connection queue.
Energy storage is another critical gap to the delivery of clean power and net zero targets. As intermittent renewables grow, batteries and other storage technologies will play a crucial role in supporting system stability. However, storage is not yet fully utilised in network planning, and the role it could play in constraint management not yet realised.
Grid constraints and weak investment signals could also leave renewable projects exposed to high costs and consumers paying more for power.
Recent reforms aim to speed things up. Ofgem has approved the National Energy System Operator (NESO)’s TMO4+ grid connections overhaul, introducing a “First Ready, First Needed, First Connected” approach to prioritise viable projects strategically aligned with Clean Power 2030. Those within the generation connection queue should have begun to receive notifications on the status of their applications this week. Ofgem and NESO are also reviewing delays for demand projects, including proposals to prioritise strategic connections.
Despite this progress, issues remain. Current reforms do not fully resolve constraint concerns, investment signals for locating generation and storage are not clear, and significant rises in transmission charges (TNUoS) are still forecast, with broader TNUoS reform not expected to be finalised until 2029.
David Stevenson, Lead Analyst for Renewable Generation at Cornwall Insight, said:
“What this survey shows is a growing frustration that the grid simply hasn’t been keeping pace with the energy transition. We’re trying to run a 21st-century system on infrastructure designed for a completely different era. Renewables are being built faster and in different places than the existing grid was ever meant to handle, yet it can still take a decade to deliver major transmission upgrades. Storage could take a huge amount of pressure off the system, but it isn’t yet being planned for or rewarded in a way that reflects its importance.
“Reforms such as the creation of NESO and the shift to a ‘First Ready, First Needed, First Connected’ approach are encouraging, yet they only tackle part of the problem. The industry needs quicker delivery on the ground and clearer signals on where projects are genuinely needed. Without that, progress will continue to drag and the cost of getting power to where it needs to be will keep rising at a time when affordability is already under strain.”
Speaking at the conference:
Chris O'Shea, CEO of Centrica, emphasised the urgency of the situation:
"The clean energy transition cannot be slowed down by bloated bureaucracies. We have to have faster grid connections, NESO's new 'first ready, first connected’, model fully delivered. We need flexible markets that reward demand side response. And we need storage treated as strategic infrastructure."
Sonia Brown, Group Head of Strategy, Innovation and Market Analytics at National Grid, highlighted the critical role of investment in underpinning the UK's net zero ambition:
"What we are investing is very much needed, because we can't have clean power coming through without the investment in the wires that are going to take it from the offshore wind, through to the customers that want to be consuming it."
Michael Shanks, Energy Minister at the Department for Energy Security and Net Zero, stressed the Government’s commitment to connections reform:
"We have ended the first come, first serve grid connections queue. We have introduced the biggest reform of planning in a generation. And we know that the way the electricity market works needed to change.
"That is why, this summer, we announced a new Reformed National Pricing Programme which, along with the upcoming Strategic Spatial Energy Plan, will allow us to reform our power market and build a power system based on centralised, strategic, big-picture planning, instead of slow and uncoordinated fragmentation. So that new energy sources are built where they're needed most, and as the power grid grows, it will keep up with the energy we'll need and send it where it needs to go."
