UK grid upgrade delays risk higher consumer costs, NAO warns
Britain's National Audit Office warns that delays to electricity grid upgrades could push balancing costs to as much as £7.8 billion by 2030.
Many of Britain's planned electricity transmission upgrades are at risk of missing their deadlines, a National Audit Office report has found, warning that the shortfall could drive up costs for consumers in the near term.
The energy regulator Ofgem estimates that around £70 billion of investment is required to modernise the transmission network between 2025 and 2031.
When the grid is unable to move enough electricity from where it is generated to where it is consumed, the National Energy System Operator (NESO), which runs the network, steps in to keep supply and demand in balance. In practice, this has meant paying gas plants or wind farms to switch off and gas plants to switch on.
Such payments totalled £1.9 billion in 2025-26. The NAO cautioned that this figure could climb to between £6.6 billion and £7.8 billion by 2030 if grid upgrades are not sped up to keep pace with new generation expected to come online.
NESO has identified 88 grid upgrade projects as necessary by 2030, but the report found that 64 of them remain at an early stage of development and are not expected to be finished on time.
The report said delivering all the upgrades by 2030 would be "very challenging", pointing to significant planning, supply chain and system access risks. It noted that some projects are already forecast for delivery after 2030, meaning some new generation is likely to connect before the necessary grid upgrades are complete.