Question to the Department for Energy Security & Net Zero:

To ask the Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero, what steps his Department has taken to identify the (a) location and (b) severity of capacity constraints in the energy transmission network.

National Energy System Operator (NESO) is responsible for strategic network planning of transmission infrastructure. NESO considers the network design objectives of economic efficiency, deliverability and operability, environmental impacts, and community impacts when making recommendations for infrastructure. Recommendations were previously based on NESO’s Network Options Assessment which considered network constraints in its analysis. In future recommendations will be based on NESO’s Future Energy Pathways, which includes modelling of energy supply and demand considering network capacity constraints, and the forthcoming Strategic Spatial Energy Plan.