Bluefield Solar Income Fund Limited (LON:BSIF), the London listed UK income fund focused primarily on acquiring and managing solar energy assets, has confirmed that following the first stage of National Energy System Operator’s grid reform process, the Company received Gate 2, Phase 1 offers on c. 660MW of its development pipeline.
NESO’s grid reform process is a major overhaul of how energy projects connect to Britain’s electricity grid, designed to clear a huge backlog, prioritise ‘ready to go’ projects, and align the system with the UK’s Clean Power 2030 goals. It replaces the old first come – first served queue with a readiness and strategic alignment based system, removes stalled projects, and introduces a new process to accelerate delivery.
Receipt of a Gate 2, Phase 1 offer means that projects have had their connection date confirmed as being between 2026-2030 and so have attained a highly protected status in the queue of projects to be connected to the grid. The technology split across the Gate 2, Phase 1 offers for the Company’s development pipeline is c. 540MW solar PV and c.120MW BESS.
Bluefield Solar is also pleased to confirm that it has received Gate 2, Phase 2 offers on c. 560MW of its development pipeline, split between c. 185MW PV and c. 370MW BESS. Receipt of a Phase 2 offer means projects have been allocated a grid connection date between 2031-2035.
This means of the Company’s c. 1.34GW pipeline, over 90% has received Gate 2 offers. The remaining 9% of the pipeline that was allocated Gate 1 offers corresponds to 125MW BESS. Projects allocated Gate 1 offers will need to re-apply for new grid offers to re-enter the grid queue, upon which connection dates offered will depend on application of NESO’s strategic alignment criteria. The Company is also able to confirm that projects which have been allocated Gate 1 offers have not been allocated any value within the Company’s NAV to date.
The success of the grid reform process is testament to the strategy designed and implemented by the Investment Adviser in 2020 and has resulted in the Company having a highly valuable pipeline.
Update on Formal Sale Process
The Strategic Review and Formal Sale Process announced by the Company on 5 November 2025 continues in line with the Board’s expectations. The Company will provide a further update when it issues its interim results in early March 2026 unless there are any material developments in the meantime.
