Question to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy:

To ask His Majesty's Government what assessment has been made of the suitability of the use of Modular Offshore grids in the North Sea corridor to transport power closer to demand; and what assessment they have made of the implementation of Belgium’s offshore grid in this regard.

The Electricity System Operator has undertaken consideration of the best approach to coordinate offshore transmission infrastructure to deliver greater efficiencies, reductions in planned infrastructure and accelerate the offshore wind delivery. Belgium’s Modular Offshore Grid connects several wind farms via a single cable. The UK’s Holistic Network Design delivers a similar outcome at greater scale, covering 21GW of offshore generation in its first round and 23GW in its second. Our approach will utilise shared connection points for multiple generators and aims to use multipurpose interconnectors to transmit energy from generators to consumers; reducing costs and impacts for developers, communities, and bill-payers.