A quango overseen by Ed Miliband has blocked new energy projects from joining the National Grid, potentially dealing a significant blow to the Energy Secretary’s net zero ambitions.

The National Energy System Operator (NESO) overseen by David Miliband has announced a temporary ban on new projects joining the grid, after thousands of applications from green energy providers caused a huge connections backlog.

The National Energy System Operator (Neso) announced the temporary ban on Wednesday, claiming it was necessary to reduce a huge connections backlog across the grid, which has been overwhelmed by thousands of applications from green energy providers.

The system is under so much pressure that new projects face delays of up to 14 years to secure connections, more than double the time it takes to build a large wind farm.

NESO maintain a list of projects that hold contracts for Transmission Entry Capacity (TEC) with us. These include existing and future connection projects. And projects that can be directly linked to the NETS, or connected at a distribution level. This can be found here:

The latest Transmission Entry Capacity (TEC) Register can be found here:

https://www.neso.energy/industry-information/connections/reports-and-registers

We have downloaded the latest Excel report here:

TEC Register 14 January 2025

There appear to be no entries for Scout Moor 2 and only one entry for Cubico, which is Daviot Windfarm. This application is at the scoping stage for a combined wind farm and storage system. However, given the poor quality of data in government databases it cannot be concluded that Cubico do not yet have an application in for Scout Moor II.

More details here:

Market Watch: Miliband quango blocks new businesses from joining power grid

Original story in the Telegraph (paywalled) here:

Miliband quango to block new businesses from joining power grid