On 10th June 2026 the National Energy System Operator (“NESO”) published an update that 58% of connection offers for renewable energy projects in the pre-2030 pipeline (731 out of 1,223 projects) have now been issued.
This is exciting news for landowners and developers with projects within the pre-2030 pipeline who now know with certainty when they can connect and start generating (or sometimes storing, but I digress) both electricity and income.
NESO’s announcement does spark questions about what the market for new renewable energy projects might look like in the near and medium term. Farmers, estates, and other large landowners (who frequently host projects on land adjacent to existing grid infrastructure) will be keen to know as economic pressures make diversifying part of the farm to host an energy project an increasingly appealing proposition.
Rather helpfully, NESO has published an outline of total renewable energy capacity required to meet the UK’s needs by 2035, broken down by type of technology, and the current status towards meeting the targeted capacity.
The data indicates the market is at or near saturation for new battery and solar projects to connect by 2035, although NESO does highlight there is regional variation to the capacity needs for these technologies. It is also clear that there is roughly 5GW of remaining capacity for new onshore wind projects and 7GW of capacity for low carbon dispatchable power (think anaerobic digestors or biomass burning power stations).
So what does this mean from a landowner perspective?
It looks like opportunities for new grid scale solar and battery projects will be muted compered to before NESO’s reform of the grid connection queue, although the above-mentioned regional capacity requirements meant there will be more demand in some parts of the UK than in others. However, there is still a fair amount of capacity for onshore wind projects which have become significantly more viable following the 2024 changes to the National Planning Policy Framework which previously acted a de-facto ban on onshore wind projects. There also remains capacity for more novel forms of renewable energy projects which might receive more focus as the market for the traditional solar and battery projects becomes less active.
It is also worth bearing in mind that renewable energy generation is not limited to grid export projects. Roythornes have already acted for one landowner in respect of a proposed solar farm to supply power to an electric car charging station, and such arrangements might become increasingly common in the age of AI as companies seek to reduce energy costs running their data centres.
If you have any questions about a proposed renewable energy project on your land, our Natural Resources team are happy to help.