In October 2026 the Planning Inspectorate granted consent to a Nottinghamshire solar farm with around 150MW of battery storage, while Ofgem consulted on letting developers build their own transmission connections. Modo Energy reports that connection reform has pushed 6.5GW of projects back by at least six months, and Drax notes a legacy queue of more than 700GW of projects waiting for grid connections.
Consent decisions under the Planning Act 2008
The Steeple Renewables Project was granted development consent by the Department for Energy Security and Net Zero on 9 October 2026. The application covers a solar farm in Nottinghamshire of approximately 450MW alongside approximately 150MW of battery energy storage. It was submitted to the Planning Inspectorate on 14 May 2025 and accepted for examination on 11 June 2025, with recommendations made to the Secretary of State on 10 July 2026.
The Planning Inspectorate said the application was the 115th energy application out of 183 examined to date and was again completed within the statutory timescale laid down in the Planning Act 2008. Local people, the local authority and other interested parties were able to take part in the six-month examination, and the Examining Authority's recommendation and the evidence considered are publicly available on the National Infrastructure Planning website.
Ofgem proposes self-build transmission connections
Ofgem opened a consultation on 7 October 2026 on allowing wind and solar farms, battery sites and large electricity users to build their own sole-use connections to the high-voltage transmission network and then hand those assets over to the network owner. Responses are due by 13 November. The self-build and transfer route is currently limited mainly to sites within 2km of the existing transmission system where the new assets could not be shared with anyone else.
Ofgem says industry has pointed to possible cost savings of around 20% and connections one to two years sooner where no wider reinforcement of the network is needed. Its illustrative scenarios put the median cost of the assets at £255m and five years to connect when the network owner builds them, against £191m and three years under the most optimistic self-build case. Modelled knock-on savings for other bill payers range from £12.5m to £1.3bn a year.
Draft rules would require self-built assets to meet the network owner's technical standards, use pre-approved engineering designs unless Ofgem signs off an alternative, and carry a five-year defect period. Where assets worth £40m or more could later serve other users, Ofgem would set the price the network owner pays. Ofgem plans to publish responses in January 2027 and reach a decision in the first quarter of 2027, using powers in the Planning and Infrastructure Act 2025.
Queue priority replaces first-come, first-served
Drax says the legacy first-come, first-served approach left more than 700GW of projects waiting for grid connections, including projects that are less likely to get built or less strategically vital. It describes the National Energy System Operator's move towards giving greater priority to projects that are viable and strategically important as a sensible development, arguing that genuine projects should be able to progress while network capacity is not effectively reserved for projects less likely to go ahead.
Drax also notes that a majority of the UK's new generation and storage is being developed in Scotland and the north of England, which together account for more than half of Britain's low-carbon generation capacity while representing less than a fifth of electricity demand. It says the UK has already paid out more than £1bn in wind curtailment costs this year, and that long connection times make decisions on new facilities much harder.
Reform pushes pipeline connection dates back
Modo Energy's October 2026 GB BESS pipeline update records 217 projects totalling 20.7GW. It says connection reform has pushed connection dates back, with 6.5GW of projects in its Q2 2026 pipeline now expecting a connection at least six months later. Under unchanged market conditions, Modo says a slower buildout means higher revenues for the batteries that do connect. It expects 19.5GW to connect by the end of 2029, with 1.3GW possibly connecting after that.
Modo reports that 8.7GW of the pipeline sits across 19 large sites of 300MW or more. The largest is Thorpe Marsh at 1,400MW in Yorkshire, followed by Carrington at 680MW in the north west, with four further sites of 500MW each. Modo says its figures are drawn from public registers including NESO's Transmission Entry Capacity register, DNO embedded capacity registers and the Renewable Energy Planning Database, which can be outdated or incomplete.
Key Takeaways
The Steeple Renewables Project, about 450MW of solar with about 150MW of BESS in Nottinghamshire, was granted development consent on 9 October 2026.
Ofgem is consulting until 13 November 2026 on allowing developers to build and transfer their own sole-use transmission connections, with a decision expected in the first quarter of 2027.
Drax says the legacy first-come, first-served approach left more than 700GW of projects waiting for grid connections.
Modo Energy reports that 6.5GW of projects in its Q2 2026 pipeline now expect a connection at least six months later.
Sources