UK audit warning says delayed grid upgrades could push annual constraint costs to £7.8 billion

交付差距威胁到清洁电力时间表

英国的电力网络计划必须加速,或者消费者可能面临显著高的成本,根据国家审计局的评估报告,加迪安9月11日。 观察员发现,仅有16个被认为是政府2030年清洁能源目标所必需的80个传输项目已经完成。 许多剩余的项目仍处于早期阶段,而一些项目预计将在目标年后完成。

The central risk is a widening mismatch between new generation and the wires needed to move its electricity. When transmission capacity is insufficient, the system operator may pay wind farms to reduce output and activate generation elsewhere, often from gas. Those constraint costs are recovered through the energy system. They reached £1.9 billion in 2025-26 and could rise to as much as £7.8 billion annually by 2030 if network construction fails to keep pace, the audit assessment said.

无前例的投资测试

A five-year grid-modernisation programme worth about £70 billion is intended to expand pylons, overhead lines and substations so that renewable output can reach homes and businesses. Delivering it would require transmission owners to increase annual investment from roughly £2.5 billion in 2025-26 to more than £11 billion by 2027-28. The scale creates simultaneous pressure on planning approvals, construction capacity, supply chains, skilled labour and regulatory oversight.

政府的清洁能源2030计划提供了扩张的战略原因。 英国表示,到2030年,英国将需要大约两倍的新传输基础设施,而在过去的十年中,它将建造的数量。 该计划的目标是清洁的来源至少产生英国在典型的一年内消耗的电力,同时减少对波动性国际天然气的依赖。 因此,网络连接和承认改革是前提条件,而不是能源过渡的次要元素。

What happens next will turn on project-level delivery and public transparency. The audit body called for clearer reporting from the government, Ofgem and the National Energy System Operator about costs, milestones and delays. Ofgem estimates households could ultimately be about £30 a year better off if construction proceeds at the required pace because avoided constraint payments would outweigh network costs. That benefit remains contingent on completing critical links before renewable generation is stranded behind bottlenecks.