Ofgem launches early construction funding consultation on Norwich to Tilbury

In a move that will alarm campaigners and communities, the energy regulator Ofgem has today launched a consultation on bringing forward key parts of the Norwich to Tilbury scheme to 2027.

I wrote last week about Ed Miliband’s Mission 2030 to decarbonise electricity generation in the UK and how this would inject more pace into projects already in train. Today, we have seen a direct consequence of this with the launch of Ofgem’s consultation on early construction funding for Norwich to Tilbury and delivering components of the scheme by 2027.

Photo by Rodion Kutsaiev on Unsplas

The driver for this seems to be interim 2030 Net Zero targets, with the consultation document stating at point 2.3:

“As part of the drive to meet Net Zero interim targets by 2030, there will be a significant growth in offshore wind generation and interconnector customer connections in the East Anglia and Southeast England areas. The network in these areas will require a range of reinforcements to provide these new customers with secure connections and to ensure that there is sufficient system capacity to allow the network to be operated in an economic and efficient manner without exposing consumers to either inefficient levels of constraint or investment costs.”

In a clear signal that National Grid Electricity Transmissions (NGET) are determined to press ahead with the project despite local opposition and calls for a pause, the document goes on to say at 2.8 and 2.9:

“NGET made an application for ECF under Part C of SpC 3.41 of their licence to enable funding of early construction activities for the project. These activities align to early enabling works, and early procurement commitments.”

“The ECF has been submitted at this stage as NGET is satisfied that their plans have sufficiently progressed to make this submission.”

Points 2.10 through to 2.13 speak to the scope of the acceleration, setting out:

“An opportunity has arisen to accelerate part of the Norwich Tilbury delivery works. NGET is contracted to deliver works to facilitate numerous connections at Norwich Main substation set to be delivered by 2027.

These include:

• Hornsea Offshore Wind Farm 3GW

• Equinor Energy – Wind Farm 1.3GW

• Norwich GREEN –1025MW TBC

• O&G Solar – Solar Energy 500MW TBC

• Innova Battery Storage - 400MW

To facilitate these connections, the existing AIS substation will be extended to the east and west, with the Norwich to Tilbury project planned to connect into two new bays in the western extension. NGET are engaging a main works contractor to deliver the substation extension works to facilitate the customer connections above. The FEED works for the new Norwich to Tilbury bays has been factored into the main works contractor’s scope to assess the overall substation design holistically, combining the Norwich Tilbury project’s needs with the requirements of NGET’s contracted customers.

NGET awarded a main works delivery contract for the substation extension works in March 2024, with delivery forecast to start later in 2024. By including the design and build of the two new Norwich to Tilbury bays into the substation contractors main works, NGET state that this presents an opportunity to deliver:

• Accelerated delivery of a key component of the project;

• An ability to optimise the use of skilled resources; and

• An opportunity to leverage cost efficiencies.

This will revise the completion date for part of the works to 2027, instead of 2030 as per the original Norwich to Tilbury programme (all subject to Development Consent Order (DCO) approval).”

The full consultation documents are online here and the consultation runs until 10 September, with replies to be sent to: RIIOElectricityTransmission@ofgem.gov.uk

At a time when I, and others, have led calls for the project to be put on ice while offshore and underground alternatives are properly considered this a blow for local communities and displays a clear desire on the part of the new Labour government and National Grid to push ahead with the new pylons through Norfolk, Suffolk and Essex.

If there is a small glimmer of hope here, it’s that Ofgem demonstrate in this announcement the willingness to be flexible to ensure projects are as coordinated as possible but just imagine how much more coordinated we could be if Miliband reverted to the 2035 target for decarbonisation and all alternatives to Norwich to Tilbury were properly considered. That Ofgem now seem to believe you can coordinate generation and transmission projects, shows if we are able to win the wider battle over Norwich to Tilbury, the door to a better approach is clearly ajar and that wider opportunity must be grasped.