The firm said recent changes in the political and regulatory environment were to blame for the downgrade, as Government cuts to support for renewables have had an “adverse impact on the timing and amount of new generation connections to the grid”.
In a performance report, National Grid said: “Our customers and stakeholders have been telling us that their plans are changing. As a result, we expect to connect around 11GW of new generation and 48 new SGTs over the RIIO period. The baseline figures agreed at the start of RIIO were 33GW of new generation connections and 72 SGTs.”
A Grid spokesperson told Utility Week the decrease relates to the transmission entry capacity (TEC) register, where customers state what capacity they intend to connect. But the demand from generators to connect to the grid has fallen well below Grid’s expectations of a ‘Gone Green’ scenario featuring a heavy renewables roll out.
But a host of recent cuts to renewables subsidies has put pressure on developers.
In June, the department of energy and climate change (Decc) it said it would scrap the Renewables Obligation support for onshore wind a year earlier than planned. Decc has also threatened to scrap the Feed-in Tariff and end subsidies for biomass and small solar projects, and implement measures to fast-track fracking. Additionally, the chancellor has removed the renewable generation exemption to the Climate Change Levy.
The National Grid report said the revision of the figures illustrate the “volatility” experienced by the industry, with major differences between what was agreed at the start of RIIO, what the scenarios are now and what generation customers are actually contracted to connect.
“Part of our role involves managing this uncertainty in the best way, liaising with customers, gathering intelligence and modelling the network accordingly.”
“The uncertainty regarding customer requirements is a big challenge for us because we have to change our delivery plans to meet new needs,” the firm added.
“We’ve forecast an adjustment to our funding as a result of our customers’ reduced output requirements.”