Renewable energy projects face a 15-year wait to connect to the UK’s electricity grid.

During an oral evidence session at the Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy Committee about the decarbonisation of the energy sector, Will Mezzulo, Head of Hydrogen at Centrica said: “At the moment, the grid is absolutely constrained.

“They physically can put hardly any more grid-scale batteries or renewables on the network. We have been made aware of a solar farm with a 14MW grid connection. It has been told of a grid connection date of 2033.”

It had been previously reported that developers of large-scale generation and storage projects seeking to connect to the electricity grid were being given timescales of 2028 and well beyond.

Merlin Hyman, Chief Executive at Regen, which manages the Electricity Storage Network, said: “The solar farm is quite lucky with 2033, because for most people it is 2036 or 2037 now. If you apply with a new solar farm, battery, hydrogen electrolyser, and large-scale electric vehicle charger in most parts of the country, you will get a connection date in 15 years’ plus time.

“Given our targets are rather earlier than that, that is clearly a huge problem now for the whole net zero transition.”