GBE: Another HS2-Scale Flop Taking Your Money

Great British Energy (GBE) has been presented as a flagship national project ,a bold plan to deliver 15 GW of “clean energy generation and storage” by 2030, supposedly lowering bills and strengthening Britain’s energy security.¹

But when examined against the operational realities of the national grid, GBE begins to look uncomfortably similar to HS2: a politically driven megaproject sold with glossy promises, while the infrastructure required to make it work remains years behind schedule.²

GBE’s 2030 Target Is Built on Grid Infrastructure That Is Running Years Late

GBE tells the public it will help “decarbonise the GB power system by 2030”.But the grid operator (NESO) and the transmission owner (NGET) have already publicly acknowledged:Super Grid Transformers are delayed.Transmission reinforcements are late.Queue reform pushes high-volume projects into the 2029–2035 window.Solar, wind and BESS projects are increasingly “connection-blocked” by lack of system capacity.The government’s own documents show:

No new 400 kV headroom at Drakelow until 2029–2030+.Major north–south corridor reinforcements (B8/B9 boundaries) require work into 2031.Most connection offers for large storage now land in the early 2030s after Gate 2 queue triage.GBE cannot deliver 15 GW of usable capacity by 2030 when the grid to carry it does not exist.

The government highlights the “generation” and “storage” it intends to build, but avoids confronting the central engineering fact: none of this capacity is useful without the high-voltage transmission network to carry it.³

Just as HS2’s rolling stock was procured before the track existed, ministers are now announcing gigawatts of new energy projects long before the substations, Super Grid Transformers (SGTs) and reinforcements required to connect them are ready.⁴

The most striking example is Drakelow, a key Midlands transmission node that multiple solar, BESS and data-centre schemes depend upon.According to National Grid’s own Appendix G, Drakelow cannot provide additional 400 kV headroom until the installation of a new Super Grid Transformer, originally pencilled in for late 2029 and now understood to be slipping toward Q2 2030.⁵Until that transformer is in place, these projects simply cannot export power, no matter how many turbines, panels or batteries are physically installed.⁶

This is not an isolated anomaly.NESO’s Gate 2 queue triage has pushed many large-scale storage and renewable projects into 2029–2035, reflecting deep constraints across the network.⁷Ofgem’s RIIO-ET3 planning documentation further confirms that north-south corridor reinforcements, especially across boundaries B8 and B9, require multi-year works extending into 2031.⁸In other words, the very grid infrastructure that GBE needs to make its 2030 target credible does not exist today and will not exist within the timeline ministers claim.⁹

GBE’s storage ambitions also do not survive contact with reality.

Most grid-scale Battery Energy Storage Systems (BESS) being deployed in the UK today are 2–4 hours in duration — nowhere near enough to address a multi-day winter wind lull.¹⁰Even if all 15 GW of GBE’s headline capacity were batteries (which it is not), this would equate to 30–60 GWh — enough to power the country for 30–60 minutes during a winter peak.¹¹The public impression of “15 GW of clean energy” disguises the fact that almost none of it constitutes firm, dispatchable power.

The pattern is unmistakable.As with HS2, political leaders have announced an ambitious national scheme anchored in idealised future benefits, while quietly ignoring the missing foundations.¹²HS2 had trains before it had track.GBE offers gigawatts before it has grid.And in both cases, taxpayers and bill-payers are left funding assets that cannot deliver their promised value because the enabling infrastructure is incomplete or delayed.¹³

The comparison is not figurative.It is structural.

Both HS2 and GBE share the same fatal flaw: premature procurement underpinned by unrealistic timelines, followed by escalating costs, delivery slippage, and a widening gap between political promises and engineering reality.¹⁴Unless the government confronts the grid bottlenecks that NESO and National Grid have already documented, GBE risks becoming another multi-billion-pound monument to political enthusiasm unmoored from physical feasibility.¹⁵

In short: GBE is following the HS2 playbook , announcing the benefits, spending the money, and forgetting to build the critical infrastructure first.And the public will pay for the consequences, again.

Footnotes

1. GBE five-year strategic plan: claim of 15 GW of clean energy generation and storage by 2030.

2. HS2 analogy arises from mismatch between promised delivery and missing or delayed enabling infrastructure.

3. UK transmission capacity is the binding constraint on new renewable and storage deployment.

4. Political announcements of capacity do not equate to operational capability without substations, transformers and reinforcements.

5. National Grid Appendix G for Drakelow: new 400 kV SGT required; expected completion initially late 2029; evidence indicates slippage into 2030.

6. Connection offers conditioned on transmission reinforcement mean physical assets cannot export until headroom is created.

7. NESO Gate 2 queue reform redistributes large projects into later connection windows, typically 2029–2035.

8. RIIO-ET3 documentation shows major corridor reinforcements extending to 2031.

9. Network headroom for many zones will not materially increase until after 2030.

10. Typical BESS installations in the UK provide only 2–4 hours of storage duration.

11. 15 GW × 2–4 hours = 30–60 GWh; UK winter peak demand exceeds 60 GW.

12. Political ambition out pacing engineering deliverability mirrors HS2’s project trajectory.

13. Assets deployed before the enabling infrastructure exists are stranded or constrained.

14. Unrealistic delivery timelines are the primary cause of cost escalation in national infrastructure megaprojects.

15. Without grid-first planning, GBE risks systemic underperformance similar to HS2’s partial cancellations and cost overruns.