Renewable generators are gaining far greater access to the electricity network as UK Power Networks’Distribution System Operator opens up grid capacity.

Solar wind and battery projects now have more reliable routes to market,allowing schemes to scale and operate more efficiently.

UK Power Networks DSO says flexible connections and active network management have delivered 98%network availability.

Curtailment has been cut to just 2%,down from 8.7%two years ago.

That means generators can export more power,maximise revenue and push more low carbon electricity into the system.

Already 49 Distributed Energy Resource projects with a combined capacity of 500 MW are benefiting from the approach.

The DSO operations team acts as an operational partner to generators once they connect to the network.

It monitors energy flows in real time to maximise exports and minimise curtailment.

Sotiris Georgiopoulos Director of DSO at UK Power Networks said:“As a DSO it’s our responsibility to help our generation customers deliver more green energy efficiently and support the UK’s transition to Net Zero.”

“By driving down curtailment and ensuring generators have more opportunities to export energy on to the grid we are bringing more energy where people need it,”he said.

He said the new model had already saved customers£91 million and unlocked an extra 160 GWh of renewable power.

“This project is a great example of how we are enabling smarter network management,”he added.