The National Grid ESO’s Holistic Network Design (HND) has been published, the blueprint for a single, integrated approach to support large scale delivery of electricity from offshore wind for the nation.

It is a major step towards identifying much of the strategic grid infrastructure will be required to deliver on the UK’s target of 50GW of offshore wind by 2030 and the documents represent £54bn investment in network infrastructure and potential consumer savings of £5.5bn.

The HND was developed as part of National Grid ESO’s role in the Offshore Transmission Network Review (OTNR), launched by the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (BEIS) in July 2020 to ensure that the transmission connections for offshore wind generation are delivered in the most appropriate way, considering the increased ambition for offshore wind to achieve net-zero.

Created with the transmission owners and working closely and in consultation with Ofgem, the UK, Scottish, and Welsh Governments, offshore wind developers and environmental stakeholders, the HND primarily includes offshore wind projects that secured seabed leases through The Crown Estate’s Offshore Wind Leasing Round 4 and Crown Estate Scotland’s ScotWind Leasing Round.

The HND will be followed by a Detailed Network Design (DND) and consenting process to determine technology choices, transmission routes and where substations and converter stations will be located. These will be carried out by the organisation delivering the network infrastructure.

Paul Cooley, director of offshore wind, SSE Renewables welcomed the document, but asked for more certainty in some areas, saying: “Today’s announcement is a welcome first step in identifying the supporting infrastructure needed to help enable Britain’s transition to net-zero through the delivery of 50GW offshore wind by 2030. It must be highlighted though that there is a significant volume of offshore wind capacity still without certainty of their connection date and location which needs to be urgently resolved.”

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