UK Electricity Grid Connection Queue
Explore projects with a contract to export power onto Great Britain’s transmission network, grouped by technology, status, capacity and connection date.
What a connection contract actually is
Transmission Entry Capacity is the maximum power a project is contracted to export, measured in megawatts.
It is not planning permission, finance or a promise to build. Planning status is shown on the renewable projects page.
What is in the queue
The register below groups the contracts by technology, status and connection date, with the capacity held by each.
Great Britain · NESO contract register
2,082 projects hold transmission-capacity contracts
These are live contract records, not a prediction that every project will be built. Project-level capacity below is deduplicated using NESO's case-sensitive Project ID.
Cumulative contracted
688
GW after project-ID deduplication
Recorded as connected
82.6
GW in the current register fields
Recorded capacity change
605.5
GW contracted above connected capacity
Contract records retained
2,219
Including 256 staged rows
Gate 1 projects
862
Gate 2 projects
138
Gate not yet published
1,082
Project status
Where contract records sit
A staged project can appear in more than one status, so project counts are not additive.
| Status | Projects | Records |
|---|---|---|
| Scoping | 1,349 | 1,403 |
| Built | 386 | 388 |
| Consents approved | 199 | 220 |
| Awaiting consents | 150 | 163 |
| Under construction / commissioning | 39 | 45 |
Host transmission owner
Which network hosts the contracts?
NGET
1,207
England & Wales transmission · 1,297 records
SPT
443
South of Scotland transmission · 465 records
SHET
417
North of Scotland transmission · 442 records
OFTO
15
Offshore transmission · 15 records
Gate field
Why are so many Gate values blank?
NESO populates Gate only after a Gate 1 or Gate 2 agreement is countersigned. A blank value is not a planning decision or a prediction about delivery.
Technology mentions
What is seeking grid capacity
Multi-technology contracts count once under every published component. Capacity cannot safely be allocated between them.
| Technology | Projects | Records |
|---|---|---|
| Energy storage | 1,408 | 1,498 |
| Solar photovoltaics | 576 | 617 |
| Onshore wind | 484 | 511 |
| Offshore wind | 131 | 150 |
| Demand | 95 | 104 |
| Gas CCGT | 65 | 68 |
| Reactive compensation | 50 | 60 |
| Hydro | 31 | 33 |
| Nuclear | 26 | 28 |
| Gas OCGT | 20 | 23 |
| Pumped-storage hydro | 17 | 21 |
| Combined heat and power | 13 | 13 |
| Gas reciprocating | 11 | 13 |
| Biomass | 10 | 11 |
| Thermal | 9 | 9 |
| Oil / advanced gas turbine | 7 | 7 |
| Hydrogen | 4 | 5 |
| Energy from waste | 4 | 4 |
| Tidal | 3 | 10 |
| Interconnector | 1 | 1 |
| Liquid-air energy storage | 1 | 1 |
| Substation | 1 | 1 |
Contracted timing
Published capacity changes by year
Past dates can remain until NESO marks a project built and connected. These totals inherit the source's aggregation warning.
| Year | Projects | Published change |
|---|---|---|
| 2020past | 1 | 0.4 GW |
| 2022past | 2 | 0.1 GW |
| 2023past | 5 | 0.3 GW |
| 2024past | 15 | 1.3 GW |
| 2025past | 31 | 3.2 GW |
| 2026 | 63 | 12.4 GW |
| 2027 | 103 | 16.2 GW |
| 2028 | 172 | 35 GW |
| 2029 | 164 | 45.5 GW |
| 2030 | 126 | 35.6 GW |
| 2031 | 171 | 54 GW |
| 2032 | 95 | 30.5 GW |
| 2033 | 205 | 81.7 GW |
| 2034 | 180 | 74.7 GW |
| 2035 | 117 | 66.3 GW |
| 2036 | 74 | 32.4 GW |
| 2037 | 265 | 95.8 GW |
| 2038 | 29 | 14.9 GW |
| 2039 | 20 | 5.1 GW |
Largest recorded changes
The 20 biggest non-built project positions
| Project | Technology | Status | Effective | Change |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Bute Hydrogen Project 1HALDANE ENERGY PROJECT 1 LIMITED | Gas CCGT | Scoping | 2035-10-30 | 4,800 MW |
| Drax BECCSDrax Power Limited | Biomass + Demand | Scoping | 2035-10-30 | 3,906 MW |
| Bute Hydrogen Project 2HALDANE ENERGY PROJECT 2 LIMITED | Gas CCGT | Scoping | 2035-10-30 | 3,600 MW |
| Bute Hydrogen Project 3HALDANE ENERGY PROJECT 3 LIMITED | Gas CCGT | Scoping | 2035-10-30 | 3,600 MW |
| Bute Hydrogen Project 5HALDANE ENERGY PROJECT 5 LIMITED | Gas CCGT | Scoping | 2035-10-31 | 3,600 MW |
| Bute Hydrogen Project 6Haldane Energy Project 6 Limited | Gas CCGT | Scoping | 2037-10-30 | 3,600 MW |
| Hinkley Point CNNB GENERATION COMPANY (HPC) LIMITED | Nuclear | Scoping | 2029-03-31 | 3,340 MW |
| Sizewell CSizewell C Limited | Nuclear | Consents approved | 2035-07-31 | 3,340 MW |
| Hornsea Power Station 3HORNSEA PROJECT THREE (UK) LIMITED | Energy storage + Offshore wind | Consents approved | 2026-10-01 | 3,000 MW |
| Marram Wind Offshore Wind FarmMarramwind Limited | Offshore wind | Scoping | 2031-10-31 | 3,000 MW |
| Hornsea Power Station 4ORSTED HORNSEA PROJECT FOUR LIMITED | Offshore wind | Scoping | 2028-10-30 | 2,600 MW |
| PortwindSE PORTWIND LTD | Energy storage + Solar photovoltaics + Offshore wind | Scoping | 2036-12-06 | 2,500 MW |
| Eggborough CCGT - OCGT - BESSEGGBOROUGH POWER LIMITED | Energy storage + Gas CCGT + Gas OCGT | Awaiting consents | 2026-10-01 | 2,450 MW |
| Bute Hydrogen Project 4HALDANE ENERGY PROJECT 4 LIMITED | Gas CCGT | Scoping | 2035-10-30 | 2,400 MW |
| Bute Hydrogen Project 7.1HALDANE ENERGY PROJECT 7 LIMITED | Energy storage | Scoping | 2038-10-31 | 2,400 MW |
| OWPL WindfarmOFFSHORE WIND POWER LIMITED | Offshore wind | Scoping | 2029-12-31 | 2,250 MW |
| Caledonia Offshore Wind FarmCALEDONIA OFFSHORE WIND FARM LIMITED | Offshore wind | Scoping | 2031-03-31 | 2,000 MW |
| GallosCorio Generation Limited | Offshore wind | Scoping | 2036-12-06 | 2,000 MW |
| Machair Offshore Wind FarmScottish Power Renewables (UK) Limited | Offshore wind | Scoping | 2033-09-16 | 2,000 MW |
| Walpole Flexible GenerationFLEXIBLE GENERATION 1 LTD | Energy storage + Gas CCGT | Scoping | 2033-06-30 | 2,000 MW |
Read the queue numbers carefully
A contract is not a forecast. Projects can change, be delayed or never generate. Capacity is not expected output.
Status is indicative. NESO says it is recorded on an “as far as we are aware” basis and is not authoritative planning data.
Do not add every row together. A project can appear at more than one stage or under more than one technology.
Connection-site names are not geographic coordinates. This page therefore does not offer a postcode lookup or claim a local-area match.
The queue is not a build forecast
Total queued capacity is a ceiling, not a forecast. Some projects will not secure planning permission or finance. The queue is still useful for showing where and at what scale developers want to connect.
How to read a connection date
A connection date is when the network expects to accept the connection, not a project completion date. Dates can change as network work is replanned; missing dates are shown as unknown.
Why this queue matters to bill payers
Generation that cannot connect cannot compete in the electricity market. That can leave gas setting the price more often, as explained on the gas system page.
Connections in places where the network cannot move power away can also raise balancing costs, shown on the grid balancing costs page.
Frequently asked questions
What is the grid connection queue?
The set of electricity projects holding a contract for capacity on the Great Britain transmission network. A generator, battery or interconnector cannot export power without one, so the queue is the pipeline of everything with a formal place in line — built, under construction and merely proposed alike.
What is Transmission Entry Capacity?
TEC is the amount of power a project is contracted to be able to put onto the transmission network, in megawatts. It is a network right rather than a planning permission or a promise to build: a project can hold TEC for years without a single turbine going up.
Does everything in the queue get built?
No, and this is the central caveat. The queue includes projects that will never be financed, never win planning permission, or were only ever placeholders. Total queued capacity is a ceiling on what could connect, not a forecast of what will, and it exceeds what Great Britain could sensibly use several times over.
Why do projects wait years to connect to the grid?
Historically the queue was ordered by application date, so a project that was ready to build sat behind ones that were not, and the network reinforcement each connection depended on took years to design and construct. Reform has been aimed at ordering the queue by readiness instead, so that projects able to proceed are not held up by those that cannot.
Is a connection date a completion date?
No. It is the date the network expects to be able to accept the connection, which is a different thing from when the project will be finished — or whether it will start. Read it as the earliest the network side could be ready, not as a delivery date.
