IN Brief:
- National Grid Electricity Distribution, Net Zero Industry Wales, and Celtic Freeport have launched a multi year innovation programme.
- The first project will investigate whether batteries can manage supply and demand to release additional network capacity.
- More than 30 industrial organisations previously identified over 25 possible approaches to earlier connections and greater flexibility.
National Grid Electricity Distribution, Net Zero Industry Wales and Celtic Freeport have launched a multi year innovation programme intended to help industrial customers in South Wales connect to the electricity network sooner while longer term reinforcement is developed.
The programme will test ways of making better use of existing network capacity rather than relying only on conventional reinforcement to accommodate every new industrial load or generation project. Its first project will examine whether batteries can help manage supply and demand and release additional usable capacity on the network.
The collaboration was announced alongside Net Zero Industry Wales’ EmpowerCymru 2026 conference in Cardiff. It builds on the South Wales Industrial Dialogue, which brought together more than 30 industrial organisations and identified more than 25 possible measures covering earlier connections, greater flexibility and more intensive use of existing network assets.
Access to electricity capacity has become a material part of industrial investment decisions as manufacturers, ports, energy projects and other large users consider electrification. A business can have land, planning consent and investment capital available but still face a major delivery constraint if the network cannot provide the required import or export capacity on the necessary timetable.
The South Wales programme is aimed at the period between immediate connection demand and completion of major network reinforcement. New substations, transformers and circuits remain necessary where demand is rising structurally, but these projects can take years to design, consent, procure and commission.
Flexibility offers another route. A battery controlled in coordination with the network could charge when local capacity is available and alter its behaviour when the system becomes constrained. In principle, that could reduce peak loading on particular assets and allow existing infrastructure to accommodate more activity without breaching thermal, voltage or other operating limits.
The engineering case depends on considerably more than installing battery containers. Network operators need dependable communications, visibility of the asset, suitable protection and control arrangements, and a commercial framework that determines when the battery responds to network requirements rather than wholesale prices or another external signal.
Location will also matter. Storage connected behind a constraint may be able to influence loading on the affected part of the distribution system, while an identically sized battery elsewhere might provide little benefit to that bottleneck. The first project will therefore have to connect network modelling with actual operating conditions rather than treating megawatts of storage as interchangeable.
The programme also raises the question of how temporary flexibility measures interact with permanent reinforcement. A battery that allows an industrial customer to connect several years earlier could deliver substantial economic value even if a new substation is ultimately still required. The same approach would be less useful if flexibility merely deferred unavoidable investment while demand continued to rise beyond the capability of the existing network.
For industrial companies, connection timing increasingly affects the business case for electrification. Electric furnaces, process heating, charging infrastructure, electrolysers and other large loads can require substantial new capacity, while proposed projects within the Celtic Freeport and South Wales Industrial Cluster are competing for capital against locations elsewhere.
An uncertain connection date can therefore become a commercial issue rather than a purely electrical one. Investors need confidence that the power required by a facility will be available when production starts, particularly where an alternative site can offer faster access to the network.
Net Zero Industry Wales says access to electricity has been identified as a significant barrier to industrial investment and growth in South Wales. The new programme is intended to move that concern into live technical trials, with Celtic Freeport providing a concentration of development sites where connection requirements are expected to increase.
The first battery project should help establish how much capacity active network management can release, under which operating conditions, how consistently that headroom can be maintained and what happens when the storage asset is unavailable. Those questions are important because any flexibility service used to support additional connections must remain dependable during the periods when the network is most constrained.
Battery control would also have to coexist with other uses of the asset. A storage owner may see value in wholesale trading, balancing services or other flexibility markets, while the network may need the same battery to remain available at specific times. The commercial model has to resolve those competing signals before the technical capability can be relied upon operationally.
Distribution networks across Britain are facing connection demand from industrial electrification, renewable generation, storage and transport infrastructure at the same time that major reinforcement programmes are moving through planning and procurement. Measures that make existing assets work harder could shorten some connection queues, provided they do not compromise reliability or obscure the need for long term investment.
South Wales will still require substantial electrical infrastructure as industry electrifies. The immediate test is whether better control of assets already connected to the system can create useful capacity before the next wave of substations and circuits is built, allowing viable projects to proceed without asking the existing network to operate beyond its limits.
