In their announcement today on prioritising the grid queue, NESO, the National Energy System Operator, announced a moratorium on battery storage. APRS welcomes this announcement, which comes only four days after we published our battery storage report that showed the over capacity in the system and called for a moratorium.
The NESO announcement said ‘Batteries are significantly oversupplied, with around three times more projects than the permitted capacity. This is due to projects that have protections such as planning permission. There will be no capacity for batteries in the next window.’ (see below for more info on NESO announcement). The webpage with the report results on is here and a pdf of the public-facing results is here
Dr Kat Jones, Director of APRS said:
“When we published our report last week and called for a moratorium on Battery storage projects because of overcapacity in the system, we didn’t expect an answer would come so quickly.
“This work by NESO shows the extent of the clogging of the system with battery storage, across the UK, and especially in Scotland. NESO have issued moratorium on new battery storage entering the application process for grid connection, and now the Scottish Government needs to catch up and reform its planning processes.
“We are in this situation of massive queues of 10-15 years for energy projects to be connected to the grid because there is absolutely no strategic planning for our energy installations. For example, in Scotland, every single large battery storage project is being consented, no matter whether they are on green belt or impact on communities and biodiversity.
“The NESO moratorium on grid connections is a start. But the planning system needs to catch up and move away from the current free-for-all which consents energy projects on a first-come-first served basis with no overall plan. We have the ludicrous situation that you can get planning permission for an energy project that is nowhere near a grid connection and the grid is then supposed to come to you. We need a planning system for energy which ensures we have the energy we need in the right places.”
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You can see from NESO’s figures that battery storage is hugely overcapapcity (the orange dot is total amount planned – from the Clean Power Action Plan.)
To zoom in a little on battery storage the note says that ‘Batteries are significantly oversupplied, with around three times more projects than the permitted capacity. This is due to projects that have protections such as planning permission. There will be no capacity for batteries in the next window.’
The detail of the report shows a map of battery capacity and the amount in the grid queue will be slashed under the prioritisation excercise. However the capacity of battery storage in Southern Scotland will be almost twice the level of the next highest region of the UK
Maps from the NESO Connection Reform Results showing the current provision of battery storage in the grid queue for Scotland, and the priorities to 2035
| grid queue pre-prioritisation | connections allocated | percentage connections allocated | ||
| Battery | North Scotland | 27420 | 4041 | 15 |
| South Scotland | 38340 | 12088 | 32 | |
| wind | North Scotland | 13024 | 2697 | 21 |
| South Scotland | 11308 | 3127 | 28 |
Read our Battery Storage Report
Battery Energy Storage Systems and Planning – Full Report
This report gives the full findings from a research project carried out by APRS between August and November 2025, into Battery Energy Storage Systems (BESS) in Scotland
Battery Energy Storage Systems and Planning – Summary Report
This report summarises the findings from a research project carried out by APRS between August and November 2025, into Battery Energy Storage Systems (BESS) in Scotland.
NESO grid queue figures for onshore wind
NESO took down the figures that they had up with their maps, but I made screen shots of them on the day of release and they are below for onshorewind.
Maps from the NESO Connection Reform Results showing the current provision of onshore wind in the grid queue for Scotland (left), and the priorities to 2035 (right). The figures have since been removed from the maps.