New solar farms will have to wait decades to plug into grid

Solar developers have been told they will have to wait decades to connect new solar farms to the electricity grid. Some developers have been told it will be the 2040s by the time they can connect to local electricity grids, delaying £20bn of energy projects. Grant Shapps, the net zero secretary, recently promised planning reforms to tackle bottlenecks in the grid. The blame has been variously laid on energy networks, the regulator Ofgem and renewable energy companies clogging up connection queues with speculative “zombie projects”. Together, the projects waiting amount to 12.5GW, almost as much again as the 15GW of solar capacity the UK has installed to date. The Times (£)