Question to the Department for Energy Security & Net Zero:

To ask the Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero, what (a) his Department’s and (b) NESO’s estimate is of the likely (i) scale and (ii) cost of constraints of embedded generation up to 2030 and assuming that the Clean Power 2030 targets are met or exceeded.

The National Energy System Operator (NESO) is responsible for operating Great Britain’s electricity system, which includes managing constraints. NESO publishes forecast constraint volumes and costs, but data is not available on the split of costs between different types of generators. NESO's latest balancing costs report can be found here.

Government is working to reduce constraints and improve energy security and resilience by accelerating the building of new electricity network infrastructure to increase capacity on the system. NESO’s independent advice shows we can achieve clean power by 2030 with cheaper electricity, even factoring in constraint payments.