ECP-2.1 opens this month following the publication of the ECP-2 Decision in June of this year by CRU. It will target to provide 115 connection offers in total, consisting of 85 offers for generation, storage and other system services technology projects (MEC > 500 kW). This decision to increase the number of offers to 85 from 50 as in the proposed CRU decision has been welcomed by the renewables industry. The remaining 30 offers will be reserved for non-batch and community-led projects.
Planning permission is required to apply to ECP-2, with exception of community-led projects. However, in order to receive their connection offer they must have planning permission in place.
The MKO/Mullan Grid Renewable Energy Database would prove a useful tool for our clients to analyse the level of competition and the likelihood of being included in batch processing. See our brochure here:
https://mkoireland.ie/wp-content/uploads/2020/08/MKO-Mullan-Grid-A4-002-PDF.pdf
Since the publication of the provisional RESS-1 Auction results, MKO have been conducting further analyses and note the challenges that exist for some projects to connect ‘on time’ and we encourage industry stakeholders to rise to the challenge.
As part of MKO’s analysis of the RESS-1 provisional results we have seen that out of the 49 sub-10 MW solar projects, only 7 are located further than 5 km from the closest 38kV substation. The remaining 42 have an average connection distance of 1.7 km. In conjunction with the Renewable Energy Database (above), analysis of provisionally successful RESS-1 projects has proven a useful tool in understanding the ingredients required for a competitive renewable project across the country.
