Want To Connect To The Grid? Beware New Hurdles

In many regional grids, securing a connection is moving away from a first-come, first-served queue and towards a test of whether a project is viable or valuable enough to be connected. That shift has implications not only for the organizations seeking connections, but also for the technology vendors supplying them.

Regulatory radar

Here’s a whirlwind tour of recent regulatory updates in a number of major markets:

• In the UK, Ofgem's demand connections reforms respond to a queue that grew from 41GW to 125GW in under a year, by introducing financial and readiness tests. While the primary driver of the reforms and starting point for the proposals is data centres, they are confirmed to extend across all demand sectors, including projects that already hold a connection offer.
• Ireland has taken a different route to a similar destination. In 2021, Dublin's grid regulator imposed a suspension on new data centre connections; its replacement framework – released in December 2025 – doesn't reopen the queue so much as change the entry price. Large new connections must now bring their own dispatchable generation or storage, sized to match the connection itself, and source 80% of demand from Irish renewables within six years.
• In Denmark, Energinet's national queue hit around 60GW against peak demand of roughly 7GW, prompting it to abolish first-come, first-served allocation entirely from February 2026 in favour of pool-based evaluation weighted towards project maturity and what the operator terms “grid-friendliness”.
• In the US, FERC's move from first-come to first-ready, first-served – which was extended to large loads generally under a June 2026 Department of Energy directive – runs on the same underlying logic.
• Norway is responding differently. Rather than primarily changing how projects are ranked for grid access, it is seeking to accelerate infrastructure delivery, including through a two-year licencing deadline. But additional capacity will take time to arrive: Statnett has frozen new capacity reservations in northern Norway, and some industrial electrification plans now face years-long delays.

The mechanism a project is judged against now varies significantly by market, from a queue-viability test in the UK to a bring-your-own-capacity mandate in Ireland. For on-site generation and storage, that distinction matters: an initiative may provide a hedge against connection risk in one market and be a prerequisite for connection in another.

Vendors should adapt their approach accordingly

For energy transition technology vendors, these reforms have implications for how solutions are positioned and when vendors engage with customers. As such, providers should:

• Position DER as a solution to connection constraints, not just energy costs.
  As grid access becomes more conditional, the business case for technologies such as on-site generation and storage is changing. In some markets, these technologies can reduce a customer’s exposure to scarce grid capacity; in others, they may become part of what a customer needs to secure a connection at all.
• Move upstream in customers’ project development.
  Where connection decisions increasingly depend on project readiness, technical configuration or supporting capacity, DER choices may need to be made before a grid connection is secured rather than added after the project is designed. Vendors that engage earlier can help customers shape projects around connection requirements, rather than competing only once technology specifications have already been set.

For our broader analysis of how grid regulations can shape market prioritization and go-to-market strategy for DER vendors, see our Market Insight: Using Grid Regulations To Shape Go-To-Market Strategy.