Question to the Department for Energy Security & Net Zero:

To ask the Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero, what estimate he has made of the cost of balancing payments, constraint payments and grid reinforcement associated with intermittent renewable generation.

Historical data on constraint and balancing costs is held and published by the National Energy System Operator (NESO). This data is disseminated primarily through NESO’s Annual Balancing Cost Report (with supporting data), which also includes projections of these costs out to 2035 under a range of scenarios.

Ofgem anticipates that over £70bn of investment in GB's electricity transmission networks may be required between 2026-2031 as part of their RIIO-ET3 price control (the third electricity transmission price control under their Revenues, Incentives, Innovation and Outputs framework). This investment is not only required to achieve the government's clean power target but is also essential to maintain a reliable electricity system and to deliver economic growth. This investment pays for itself over the period by enabling more low carbon energy onto the system and by reducing system constraints.