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Felicity Bradstock is a writer and journalist based in Mexico City. She writes for energy websites and covers several other industries, as well as writing…
The United Kingdom has invested heavily in expanding its renewable energy capacity in recent years to reduce its dependence on fossil fuels and support a green transition. However, one major problem stands in the way of it achieving this goal – its unprepared transmission infrastructure. Despite several new wind and solar projects coming online, the U.K. still relies heavily on natural gas due to grid inefficiencies that are delaying the shift to green energy.
The U.K. is spending up to £50 million a day to balance its power grid, as it’s forced to regularly take wind farms offline due to nationwide transmission network bottlenecks. On 14th October, the grid operator reportedly spent £47.9 million to switch off wind farms in areas experiencing an oversupply of electricity. At the same time, it had to power up gas plants in other areas with a low electricity supply.
The U.K. spent £505 million in September alone on balancing power on the grid, the highest monthly cost recorded to date. The figure is expected to reach up to £3.2 billion over the next year as Great Britain continues to work through its £150 billion transmission infrastructure upgrades. These balancing costs ultimately shift to consumers, as they are levied on household energy bills. Despite big plans for a modernised grid, upgrades are not keeping pace with the deployment of new renewable energy capacity, which is occurring at a record pace.
In total, wind farms and hydropower with a total of 9 GW of capacity, enough to power around 8 million households, were paid not to produce power on 14th October, according to the consultancy LCP Delta. Meanwhile, the grid operator funded the operation of several gas and biomass plants and purchased additional electricity imports from Europe via high-voltage subsea power cables.
In early October, the National Energy System Operator (Neso) was forced to request “last resort” emergency assistance from France, which responded by sending last-minute power supplies to the U.K. Shivam Malhotra, the head of power trading at LCP Delta, explained, “The system overall wasn’t tight in terms of power supplies… It’s the age-old story of a lack of infrastructure to transport power to where it’s needed, leading to lots of windfarms being turned off.”
It has long been common for the grid operator to pay wind farms in Scotland to go offline due to the lack of high-voltage cabling connecting them to high-demand areas in the south. There are currently only two cables moving power between Scotland and England, creating a “B6 boundary bottleneck”. Costs associated with managing the bottleneck have averaged roughly £800,000 per day so far in the 2026-2027 period, which is around double the 2025-2026 average.
In addition, while Scotland uses just 8 per cent of the U.K.’s electricity on average, it produces roughly 19 per cent of total generation, contributing 37 per cent of its wind output, so the surplus generation must travel south to fulfil demand in England and Wales.
Meanwhile, during the summer months, Neso experienced major transmission infrastructure challenges as a high-pressure heat dome reduced renewable energy output and sent electricity demand to power air conditioning and refrigerators soaring. This led Neso to bring in independent investigators to explore whistleblower claims that its staff were involved in a cover-up of a near-blackout during record-high temperatures in late June.
The U.K. energy regulator Ofgem reported that the demand for new grid connections increased from 41 GW to 125 GW between November 2024 and June 2025 in line with the accelerated deployment of new renewable energy capacity. This has left several green energy projects stranded in the connection queue, even while the U.K.’s power demand continues to grow.
National Grid has submitted an additional package of proposals to Ofgem under the RIIO-T3 load re-opener process, to obtain approval for additional investment across its electricity transmission network to meet the country’s growing power demand, unlock connections, and enable economic growth across England and Wales, the company announcedon 15th October.
The recent package includes 19 projects across England and Wales, representing about £4.5 billion of proposed investment. It forms part of National Grid’s plans to invest approximately £31 billion on the grid in England and Wales between 2026 and 2031. The investments are expected to help “increase network capacity, maintain system resilience, and ensure the electricity network is ready to accommodate increasing levels of clean power generation and demand, including from new industries and technologies”, according to National Grid.
The U.K. has big upgrade and expansion plans for its transmission infrastructure. However, the accelerated pace of renewable energy deployment is currently outpacing grid upgrades, leaving many companies waiting for their projects to be connected. This has led the U.K. to continue relying heavily on gas for power even as new wind, solar, and hydrogen projects are completed.
Felicity Bradstock is a writer and journalist based in Mexico City. She writes for energy websites and covers several other industries, as well as writing…
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