Posted by: @transparent

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There is a feeling that Planning Regulations do not provide the appropriate tools for a proper assessment of applications for energy sites.

I can understand this but am not sure that the purely technical issues should sit with development management at all.  Councillors and council officers are not equipped to deal with such matters and they anyway have an impact beyond the local area.  To my mind the purely electrotechnical issues should lie with National Grid/Neso, possibly as.a statutory consultee to the planning process or as a separate product cess.

Posted by: @transparent

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If accepting another generation or storage site connection is likely to decrease Reactive Power support in the area, then NESO should state this openly at the Planning Application stage. The LPA could then insert a Planning Condition requiring the Applicant to install Power Factor Correction (PFC) equipment as part of their installation, commensurate with an engineering recommendation from the DNO or the Transmission Grid Operator.

That makes sense, but the planning authority wouldn't be able to do this if grid capacity is not a material planning consideration.

On balance it seems to me that the electrotechnical issues might be best sitting outside (and thus in parallel with) planning law, dealt with by an organisation (presumably neso) with the specific remit and skills.

Posted by: @transparent

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As we can see demonstrated by the the fact that many generation sites have had their export ceiling reduced to zero, NESO is content to sit on the fence.

Does that matter.  Or put another way does anyone lose other than the investors who have knowingly taken a risk which may or may not pay off, as is common with investments of all types.  Provided of course neso were transparent at the time they were asked with the best info to hand.  This isn't a precise or entirely predictable problem so there are bound to be some problem cases.

@jamespa (Admission: I have invested in Derril Water Solar Farm and am not in any way impartial in this discussion). I feel that with all the talk, research, expert’s discussions, schemes to promote NetZero etc. it is sheer madness to allow generation equipment to be built but not used. There is something rotten in the system if permission can be granted for schemes costing £Millions that are intended to provide clean energy but before they commence to provide this clean energy, it is suddenly realised that the existing infrastructure will not allow for the generation. (Gets down from soapbox and stows it away under the chair.) Regards, Toodles.

Posted by: @toodles

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@jamespa (Admission: I have invested in Derril Water Solar Farm and am not in any way impartial in this discussion). I feel that with all the talk, research, expert’s discussions, schemes to promote NetZero etc. it is sheer madness to allow generation equipment to be built but not used. There is something rotten in the system if permission can be granted for schemes costing £Millions that are intended to provide clean energy but before they commence to provide this clean energy, it is suddenly realised that the existing infrastructure will not allow for the generation. (Gets down from soapbox and stows it away under the chair.) Regards, Toodles.

I understand what you are saying but if we don't build facilities that are, as a minimum, not fully used, the inevitable consequence is that there will be insufficient supply, because we can't get the sums precisely right several years in advance.  The public won't tolerate that easily and so there is some sort of trade off to be done which almost inevitably involves underused capacity.

I am sorry this investment hasn't so far worked out for you personally.  The risk must have been known to the promotors, at least qualitatively.  Whether they chose to declare it to investors is of course a whole other question!  Is it possible that the proposition was mis-sold or is it alternatively the case that this still has a good chance of making good in time?

@jamespa I can understand that predictions of future demand are resting in the properties of a crystal ball but, what must have been apparent at that time was that the energy that would be generated would have nowhere to go! Regards, Toodles.