Grid capacity

By Rebecca Knight and Paul Macrae

Rebecca Knight CMLI is a Director of LUC, with 25 years’ experience of landscape and visual impact assessment. She sits on the Landscape Institute’s Technical Committee and GLVIA Panel.

Paul Macrae CMLI is an Associate Director at LUC, with extensive knowledge of landscape and visual impact assessments for major infrastructure projects.

The huge investment required to meet the Paris Agreement targets commits the UK to significant generation of renewable energy, but do we have the grid capacity to make this happen?

The UK Government has indicated that offshore wind will produce more than enough electricity to power every home in the country by 2030;1 and from December 2021, onshore wind and solar energy developments will again be eligible to compete for financial support through the Contracts for Difference (CfD). (2) Whether onshore or offshore, wind or solar, the one constant is the requirement for a grid connection.

One of the key barriers to the implementation of wind farm developments is grid capacity: that is, the ability of the transmission infrastructure to transport electricity from the place it is generated, to the places where it is used. As an example, a lack of grid connection has limited delivery of wind energy development in Mid Wales for a number of years. Despite a positive policy environment, with several ‘strategic search areas’ defined from 2005, (3) successful large-scale development has not been forthcoming in the absence of connections to export the generated electricity.

Positive planning for renewable energy therefore requires positive planning for grid connections, and landscape architects have a key role to play. Overhead power lines, whether carried on wood poles or steel pylons, are substantial infrastructure projects, generally crossing rural areas, and with potentially extensive landscape and visual impacts. With undergrounding of high-voltage power lines being prohibitively expensive over long distances, the key mitigation is through careful route selection. The Holford Rules provide the ground rules for routeing but the process needs an understanding of sensitivities and a keen eye for the opportunities that the landscape offers. (4)

Research estimates the cost of upgrading the electricity grid to cope with demand and allow for more renewable connections at £48 billion, much of which will need to be in place by 2035.5 This will require a coordinated effort. Recently, consent for the Norfolk Vanguard offshore wind farm was quashed on the basis that the Planning Inspectorate had not fully considered the cumulative landscape and visual impacts of the grid connection works, alongside those of the future Norfolk Boreas project.6 It is essential that landscape architects are aware of the potential for cumulative issues and argue for joined-up approaches to assessing, and mitigating, the landscape and visual impacts of grid infrastructure.

References

1) https://www.gov.uk/ government/news/ new-plans-to-makeuk-world-leader-ingreen-energy

2) https://www.gov.uk/ government/ collections/ contracts-fordifference-cfdallocation-round-4

3) Welsh Assembly Government, 2005. Planning Policy Wales Technical Advice Note 8: Planning for Renewable Energy.

4) https://www. nationalgrid.com/ sites/default/files/ documents/13795- Rules.pdf

5) ScottishPower, 2019, Zero Carbon Communities https:// www.scottishpower. com/userfiles/file/ Zero_Carbon_ Communities_Report. pdf?v=3

6) https://www.judiciary. uk/judgments/ pearce-v-secretary-ofstate-for-businessenergy-and-industrialstrategy/