Great Britain’s electricity grid infrastructure: Lords Industry and Regulators Committee report

Approximate read time: 15 minutes

On 4 November 2025, the House of Lords is scheduled to debate the following motion in Grand Committee:

Baroness Taylor of Bolton (Labour) to move that this House takes note of the report from the Industry and Regulators Committee ‘Power struggle: Delivering Great Britain’s electricity grid infrastructure’ (1st Report, HL Paper 132).

1. Background to the committee’s inquiry

1.1 Great Britain’s electricity grid

Great Britain’s electricity grid is a network of wires that connect electricity generators and consumers in England, Wales and Scotland.^[1] It is made up of transmission and distribution networks:

• Transmission networks transport energy over long distances across the country using high voltage lines, often attached to pylons.
• Distribution networks transport energy over smaller distances within specific regions, using assets such as electricity substations and sets of two or three wires supported by wooden poles.

1.2 Clean power by 2030

The Conservative government led by Prime Minister Boris Johnson set targets relating to decarbonisation. In 2019, the then government legislated for a national target of net zero carbon emissions by 2050.^[2] Following this, in 2021 it proposed a target of reducing carbon emissions by 78% compared to 1990 emission levels by 2035.^[3]

The Climate Change Committee (CCC), an independent statutory body that advises the government, said that achieving emissions targets would require a fully decarbonised electricity system by 2035.^[4] In a decarbonised system, a large number of new sources of renewable generation would be connected to the grid, while the grid itself would be improved and expanded to transport an increased amount of electricity.^[5]

The current Labour government has brought the target of decarbonising the electricity system forward to 2030 as part of a national mission for clean power. This proposal was initially set out in the Labour Party’s 2024 general election manifesto^[6]. Then in December 2024, the Department for Energy Security and Net Zero published its ‘Clean power 2030 action plan’. This document set out the government’s plans to achieve a clean power system and defined the 2030 target for the first time:

In a typical weather year, the 2030 power system will see clean sources produce at least as much power as Great Britain consumes in total over the whole year, and at least 95% of Great Britain’s generation; reducing the carbon intensity of our generation from 171gCO2e/kWh in 2023 to well below 50gCO2e/kWh in 2030.^[7]

The government’s action plan stated that the shift to a clean power system by 2030 would form “the backbone of the transition to net zero”.^[8] The government’s 2024 industrial strategy green paper also mentioned its plans to achieve clean power by 2030.^[9]

1.3 Committee inquiry

On 14 January 2025, the House of Lords Industry and Regulators Committee launched an inquiry and an accompanying call for evidence on the energy grid and grid connections, with a focus on the regulatory, planning and funding barriers to delivering energy infrastructure and the ability of the government’s proposals to address them.^[10] The committee noted the government’s target for at least 95% of electricity generation in Great Britain to be clean by 2030. The committee also said it would consider whether a move to locational pricing could help to reduce the need for additional grid investment. In addition, referencing the important role played by regulators in boosting economic growth, the committee explained it would also consider the roles and responsibilities of various regulators and bodies in the sector.

The committee received both oral and written evidence from a variety of organisations and individuals. Copies of the evidence received can be found on the committee’s website.^[11]

2. Committee report

The committee published its report ‘Power struggle: Delivering Great Britain’s electricity grid infrastructure’ on 4 June 2025.

2.1 Importance of the grid

In its summary, the committee highlighted the importance of the electricity grid to modern life.^[12] It argued that recent outages in Spain and Portugal as well as at Heathrow airport had demonstrated the importance of the electricity grid and the disruption failures can cause.^[13]

The committee also said that an efficient, secure electricity grid which low-carbon electricity generators and business customers can easily connect to is essential for both promoting economic growth and reducing carbon emissions.^[14] In addition, it argued that the government’s growth agenda, with its focus on building infrastructure and support for energy-intensive industries such as artificial intelligence, would deepen the reliance on the grid.

2.2 Meeting the 2030 target

On the government’s plans to decarbonise the electricity system by 95% by 2030, the committee said that meeting the target would be a “significant challenge, but achievable”.^[15]. It argued that building more energy generation and network infrastructure at a faster pace than had been managed in recent years would be required. Citing the scale of the change needed and the UK’s record of delivering major infrastructure projects, the committee called on the government to publish its performance against a set of key metrics for delivering the target every six months.

2.3 Key findings

In a press release announcing the publication of its report, the committee highlighted the following key findings:^[16]

• The government should clarify what its drive for growth means for Ofgem’s other responsibilities.
• Reforms to the queue to connect to the grid are welcome but are currently too tightly focused on projects needed before 2030, meaning other projects, such as solar and battery storage, might be held back.
• Greater strategic planning of the energy system should help to speed up planning and regulatory approvals for new grid projects.
• The government need to assess carefully the impacts of zonal pricing on generators and consumers that are unable to move in response to price changes.

2.4 Key recommendations

The committee made 49 conclusions and recommendations across a broad range of themes. Its key recommendations, as set out in the committee’s press release, included calling on the government to:^[17]

• publish key metrics for meeting the clean power target every six months, including the successful delivery of grid projects
• provide a clear steer on how Ofgem should balance the competing objectives of affordable energy bills, encouraging investment to decarbonise the energy system and ensuring secure energy supplies
• ring-fence revenues raised by planning-related fees for use by local planning authorities
• as part of the industrial strategy, set out whether it intends to prioritise electricity grid connections for strategically important sectors or businesses
• as part of the 10-year infrastructure strategy, set out how different sectoral strategic plans will interact and how conflicts between them will be managed
• consider whether transitional support should be provided to generators and consumers who may be adversely affected by zonal pricing

3. Government response

The government published its response to the committee’s report on 5 August 2025.^[18] It thanked the committee for its work and said that its conclusions had highlighted:

[…] the urgency of grid connection reform, accelerating network infrastructure build and the need to address systemic barriers and ensure that regulatory, planning, and investment frameworks are aligned.^[19]

The government said that the Department for Energy Security and Net Zero had led the government’s response which addressed all the committee’s recommendations. Its responses to the key recommendations were as follows:^[20]

• On the recommendation to publish key metrics for meeting the clean power target every six months, the government said it intended to regularly publish statistics to monitor progress. It said this would include metrics for clean power’s share in Great Britain’s electricity generation and associated emissions intensity. The government also noted that statistics relating to the installation of low-carbon electricity generation capacity are already regularly published.^[21]
• On the call for the government to provide Ofgem with a clear steer on how it should balance competing objectives, the government noted the Ofgem review. It said the review was examining how to streamline Ofgem’s duties to provide it with a clearer mandate.^[22] The government has agreed that following this work, any revised duties would require the support of a reformed strategy and policy statement (SPS). This could enable the government to provide clarity to Ofgem on how to balance different considerations and empower it in the balancing of its decisions. The government also argued that it is in the interests of consumers that growth be considered in a way that is complementary to, rather than in competition with, Ofgem’s other duties. It therefore said that creating a regulatory environment that encourages investment and innovation would be a critical part of Ofgem’s role in helping to achieve the government’s objectives, including ‘Clean power 2030’ and net zero.^[23]
• In response to the call for all revenues raised by planning-related fees to be for the use of local planning authorities, the government highlighted its ‘Clean power 2030 plan’. It said as part of this plan it had committed to expanding cost-recovery mechanisms across relevant regimes to ensure that key organisations have sustainable resourcing models that can match the demands of future projects. It said that to support this, the government had committed to developing secondary legislation to enable local authorities to charge fees to recover the costs for relevant services provided in relation to applications for nationally significant infrastructure projects. The government noted that there is currently a £350mn shortfall nationally as planning fees do not cover the costs of running local planning application services.^[24]
• Responding to the recommendation that the government should set out whether it intends to prioritise electricity grid connections for strategically important sectors or businesses, the government said ongoing connections reform measures would benefit demand projects. It also highlighted the announcement in the industrial strategy of a connections accelerator service to provide support for connecting demand projects to the grid. The government also said it planned to use powers in the Planning and Infrastructure Bill to amend regulatory processes and accelerate connections for strategically important projects. Additionally, it said that connections for the generation and storage needed to achieve clean power by 2030 would be prioritised.^[25]
• On the call for the government to set out how different sectoral strategic plans would interact and how conflicts would be managed, the government highlighted its industrial strategy. It said that this committed it to greater integration and coverage of sectorial spatial plans, which the government said would help provide clarity to industry. The government also highlighted the newly created National Infrastructure and Service Transformation Authority (NISTA). It said NISTA would work closely with departments, regulators, arms-length bodies and local delivery partners to “identify spatial trade-offs and synergies between infrastructure policies, plans and decisions in England”.^[26]
• In response to the call for the government to provide clarity on the transitional support that adversely affected energy generators and consumers would receive, the government said it had taken a clear decision to make reforms within the current national pricing arrangements.^[27]

In its response, the government also mentioned several documents which it said contained measures that reflected “a coordinated effort to remove barriers, strengthen infrastructure, and ensure clean power is available where it is needed most”. These documents included the ‘Clean Power Action Plan 2030’, the Planning and Infrastructure Bill, the UK’s ‘Modern Industrial Strategy’ and the government’s response to the National Infrastructure Commission’s study on electricity distribution networks.^[28]

4. Read more

• Department for Energy Security and Net Zero, ‘Energy trends UK, April to June 2025’, 30 September 2025
• House of Commons Library, ‘Clean power targets’, 11 August 2025
• Policy Exchange, ‘Decarbonising the grid: Three scenarios for achieving net zero power’, 25 March 2025
• National Energy System Operator, ‘Clean power 2030: Advice on achieving clean power for Great Britain by 2030’, 5 November 2024

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