Only 22 queue applicants are also balancing mechanism lead parties, and they hold 80 MW of Gate 2
Matching the balancing mechanism lead party to the connection register applicant, on exact company name and nothing looser, finds 22 companies present in both. Those lead parties run 3,498 MW of live capacity between them. As applicants they hold 80 MW of Gate 2 between 2 of them. A lead party is the name Elexon holds for a unit, often the optimiser, so the count says which names the two registers share and says nothing about who financed or built anything.
20 of the 22 hold no Gate 2 on their queue positions. An owner that applied through a project company and trades through an optimiser appears in this count nowhere, and the site's own owner and trader fields split on most units where both are known. Both registers are read again on every build, Elexon's on 5 October 2026, so this page moves as they do: a project that is energised leaves the queue, and its Gate 2 leaves this count with it.
Why the match is deliberately conservative
A company trading through a different entity from the one that applied for the connection does not match and is not counted, so the figure is a floor rather than an estimate. An earlier version matched on shared words and paired BP Gas Marketing with Turbine Marketing SPV on the word marketing. That version was thrown away rather than tuned.
What a balancing mechanism registration proves
The connection register states a connected capacity but never says whether an asset is commercially live. A balancing mechanism registration is hard evidence that the asset exists, is energised, is metered and is settling. It is the only free published source that confirms delivery rather than intention.
The same companies are on the tool's Live tab, with live megawatts, units, queue megawatts and gate 2 set beside one another for each.