181 GW of the connection queue is not storage, and 6.8 GW of that carries a gate 2 flag
This site is about storage and stays about storage. But a battery developer asking what will happen at a substation is asking about everything queued there, and NESO's registers answer. Take every project in the transmission and embedded registers that names no storage at all, leave out the ones marked built, and 538 projects holding 181 GW are waiting, against 431 GW of storage. Storage is 70 per cent of the queue by megawatt.
What is waiting, by technology
| Technology | Waiting | Gate 2 | Gate 1 | Projects |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Offshore wind | 86,770 MW | 3,820 MW | 15,420 MW | 81 |
| Gas, combined cycle | 30,073 MW | none | 22,510 MW | 20 |
| Onshore wind | 22,031 MW | 1,768 MW | 9,169 MW | 271 |
| Pumped storage | 9,800 MW | none | none | 11 |
| Solar | 8,463 MW | 1,141 MW | 3,667 MW | 97 |
| Demand | 8,217 MW | none | 4,520 MW | 17 |
| Nuclear | 7,620 MW | none | 940 MW | 3 |
| Biomass | 4,116 MW | none | none | 2 |
| and 11 other technologies, 3,672 MW between them | ||||
A project is counted once, under the first technology it names, so the table adds up to the total. Register read 24 October 2026.
What a gate 2 flag means here
The register's Gate column carries a 2 where a gate 2 offer has been made under the connections reform, a 1 where a project holds gate 1 status, and nothing at all on most rows. Across the non-storage queue the flag sits on 6.8 GW, 3.8 per cent; gate 1 on 58 GW; and 116 GW carries no gate at all. The storage queue reads 18.8 GW at gate 2, 4.4 per cent.
A blank is not a refusal. It is a row the reform process has not marked, and the register does not say why. So these figures describe the register on the day it was read, not a verdict on the projects. The page is written from the register on every build and moves with it.
Where the two queues meet
199 of the 947 connection sites with a storage project also carry something else, 21 per cent. At those sites a battery is not waiting behind other batteries alone. The substation pages in the Atlas do not show the other technologies yet; the file that would let them is now read on every refresh, and that is the next step.
Source: NESO's transmission entry capacity and embedded registers, the same two files the queue capture reads twice a week. Pumped storage is listed as its own technology because the register does; it is storage in the wider sense and a battery's neighbour in every other.