Industry abandoning electrification plans

The Net Zero push is being hampered by grid connection issues which mean factories are put off progressing electrification projects, according to a new report.

Trade body ADE: Demand said industrial companies can’t get a reliable early estimate of what it will cost to connect their sites to the electricity network so don’t bother applying.

As the abandoned projects never appear in official statistics, network operators, regulators and government are judging the system on incomplete data found the report.

Some factories are choosing to replace ageing equipment with gas rather than electricity because connection costs and timescales were impossible to pin down before investment decisions had to be made.

Dr Phil Nicholson, Research and Insights Lead and Author of the Report said: "If a business explores electrification and decides not to proceed, that project is never counted.

“The queue stays short, the backlog looks manageable and the lost investment remains invisible. We are measuring the wrong thing, until we count the projects that never apply, we won’t know whether the system is delivering.”