Community Benefits for Electricity Transmission Networks Infrastructure

***** THIS IS AN AWARD NOTICE, NOT A CALL FOR COMPETITION *****

This procurement is being concluded following a mini competition under a Open Market Tender

Brief Description of Requirement

The energy system is undergoing profound and fundamental changes. As recent events have demonstrated, now more than ever, we must focus on securing home-grown energy supplies. In 2019, the UK was the first major economy in the world to set a binding target to reach net zero emissions by 2050. In June 2021, the government passed the Sixth Carbon Budget into law, with the aim to reduce emissions by 78% by 2035 compared to 1990 levels. The British Energy Security Strategy sets out a package of measures to speed up our deployment of all clean and renewable technologies. Moving away from dependency on the global energy market, we have committed to fully decarbonising the electricity supply by 2035, including an ambition for up to 50GW of offshore wind by 2030.

As we increase the development of clean and renewable energy generation within the UK, we will also need to increase the scale of the electricity transmission network and its rate of deployment across the country. It will not be possible to deliver a secure energy supply that is vital to growth and prosperity without developing the electricity transmission network, both on and offshore, to support it. The British Energy Security Strategy recognises this and includes actions to accelerate electricity network build, dramatically reducing timelines for strategic onshore transmission network infrastructure by around three years and aspiring to halve the end-to-end process by the mid-2020s.