#89 Grid future-proofing: has standardisation gone too far?

Connectologists® Catherine, Philip and Alex ask whether standardising substation design means we're now building too much grid. 

Key themes discussed include: 

• the cost of going big: a substation built to serve multiple future customers can cost £100m–£150m and use up to 100 acres of land - several times the £20m–£30m it costs to build a smaller substation for a single customer 

• a live example: one project was moved to a new, larger substation meant to serve several customers - but most of those other customers dropped out after Connections Reform, leaving a big substation to be built for demand that no longer exists 

• a question of intent: is building big and scaling back later a deliberate strategy, or just a lack of one 

• the planning horizon: there's no Strategic Spatial Energy Plan yet to guide where new substations should go, and around fourteen years of demand is already queued up - so how far ahead should operators be planning 

• a risk to innovation: always reaching for a big new substation could mean that smarter options, like sharing existing bays, get overlooked 

Recorded: 09 June 2026 

This content was recorded on an earlier date. The connections landscape changes rapidly, so please treat any facts, figures, and guidance as a point-in-time view and verify current information before relying on it. 

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