Oral Answers to Questions

Olly Glover Excerpts

Tuesday 10th June 2025 Commons Chamber

[Sarah Green (Chesham and Amersham) (LD)]

4. What steps he is taking to increase grid capacity.

[Olly Glover (Didcot and Wantage) (LD)]

13. What steps he is taking to increase grid capacity

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero (Michael Shanks)]

Increasing grid capacity is critical. We are halving the development time for new transmission infrastructure through reforms to planning and supply chains, so that we can deliver the grid capacity needed to achieve clean power by 2030 and meet the doubling of electricity demand by 2050.

[Michael Shanks]

We have outlined significant reforms to the connections queue. There is currently more than 740 GW in that connection queue. Clearly, that is an unsustainable amount of demand for connection to the grid, and most of it does not really exist, as my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State pointed out. We have put forward significant reforms, so that we prioritise projects that are ready to connect to the grid, and have strategic importance to the grid. The clean power action plan will drive forward what those strategic outcomes are. That work is under way, and the National Energy System Operator is considering those proposals. It will free up a huge number of projects from the connections queue, allowing new projects to join, and, crucially, allowing for demand projects that will help deliver economic growth.

[Olly Glover]

In my Oxfordshire constituency of Didcot and Wantage, sites at Culham, Harwell campus and Milton Park host a growing range of scientific and high-tech businesses, including a proposed artificial intelligence growth zone at Culham. Major housing growth also continues, and the new Valley Park development will use air source heat pumps. However, the Future Oxfordshire Partnership has raised concerns that grid constraints are causing significant delays to decarbonisation activities and creation of local power grids. What steps will the Minister take to address these problems and create an electricity grid fit for 21st-century Oxfordshire?

[Michael Shanks]

The hon. Gentleman makes an incredibly important point that outlines why this work is so important. There are two parts to it. The connections reform is crucial, so that we have a queue of projects that are strategically relevant and ready to be delivered. The second part is that we have to build significantly more grid infrastructure, and it is incumbent on all Members of this House to not oppose that grid infrastructure and then come here and say that they want new demand projects to be able to connect. Instead, they need to take a practical approach and say, “We’re going to have to build some new grid in this country if we want to unlock the huge potential of AI growth zones and other demand projects in the economy.”