Britain’s grid queue
Applications, viable projects, construction and connection — NESO’s real connections register, the historic 700+ GW headline, and the 2025 reform that is trying to fix it.
Before reform, after reform, and today
The 283 GW "retained pipeline" figure is NESO’s own reform-adjusted total (published 8 December 2025) — it is not derived by summing the public TEC Register (which still totals ~735 GW because the register itself has not been purged of legacy Scoping-stage applications). Treat the 700 GW+ and 283 GW figures as answering two different questions — "everything that has ever applied" vs "what NESO now expects to actually connect" — not as two measurements of the same thing.
Before reform
700+ GW
More than 700 GW of generation and storage projects waiting for grid access
Widely cited through 2024–25 (the "queue crisis" headline); still visible today as the raw total of NESO’s public connections register
After reform — retained pipeline
283 GW
132 GW aligned to the 2030 Clean Power target + 151 GW for 2035 system needs
8 December 2025
Raw register today
735 GW
2,200 projects in the live TEC Register — NOT purged of legacy speculative applications
As at 25 August 2026
More than 300 GW of old-queue projects will not move forward under the reformed process.
Supply is not the whole queue — demand connections are separate
The ~100 GW transmission-connected demand figure and the 283 GW generation/storage figure answer different questions (what the grid will supply vs what it will be asked to serve) and are never added together on this site.
Transmission-connected demand
~100 GW
New or expanded demand connections — data centres, electrolysers, industrial loads — identified separately from the 283 GW generation/storage pipeline above.
Already connected
~111 GW
Existing generation and storage already connected to the transmission network — the baseline the 283 GW pipeline builds on top of, not part of it.
Source: NESO, 8 December 2025 — press release.
Connections Reform timeline
The retained pipeline by technology (2030-aligned)
34.5 GW
Battery storage
32.1 GW
Offshore wind
29.9 GW
Solar
13.1 GW
Onshore wind
11.8 GW
Transmission-connected demand
3.3 GW
Nuclear
3.3 GW
Low-carbon dispatchable (e.g. gas + CCS, hydrogen)
Retained pipeline aligned to Clean Power 2030, by technology
Battery storage, offshore wind and solar make up the bulk of the 2030-aligned pipeline. Nuclear and low-carbon dispatchable generation are a small fraction of it — a pipeline weighted heavily towards variable and storage capacity.
View data table
| Period | Capacity aligned to Clean Power 2030 |
|---|---|
| Battery storage | 34.5 |
| Offshore wind | 32.1 |
| Solar | 29.9 |
| Onshore wind | 13.1 |
| Transmission-connected demand | 11.8 |
| Nuclear | 3.3 |
| Low-carbon dispatchable (e.g. gas + CCS, hydrogen) | 3.3 |
Great Britain · Source: NESO, Connections Reform outcome · as of 8 December 2025
Source: NESO, 8 December 2025 — press release.
Applications → viable → construction → connected
The live TEC Register's own status field, today — every project at any stage, 2,200in total. This is a genuinely different question from the before/after reform figures above: "where does everything in the register sit right now", not "what will actually get built".
Status and Gate are two INDEPENDENT classifications, not stages of one funnel — a project can be "Scoping" status and already hold a Gate 1 connection agreement, or "Built" with no Gate assigned at all (verified by cross-tabulating the two columns in the real register: every combination occurs). NESO’s own dataset notes state capacity figures "may result in duplicate entries" pending further data cleaning. Transmission-connected projects only — large volumes of embedded/distribution-connected generation and demand sit in separate DNO-level registers not covered here (Scotland’s embedded generation has its own NESO "Embedded Register").
Post-reform Gate classification
Gate is independent of Project Status above — a project can be at any register stage and hold, or not hold, a Gate assignment.
By transmission owner (region)
The register has no separate region/GSP code — HOST TO (transmission licensee) is the closest genuinely regional field it publishes.
How this is calculated, and what "evidence class" means
- B — Official/admin statistic with methodological limitations — every figure on this page: NESO's TEC Register (an operational register, not an audited statistical release) and NESO's own reform press releases.
Every total here was computed by summing NESO's own published register directly, project by project — not transcribed by hand from a press release. The register is public, so each figure can be checked against the current version at source.