Ofgem, the energy watchdog, wants delays cut for Scottish renewable energy projects that are waiting to be connected to the national grid network.

At present, there is a long queue of projects awaiting to be plugged into the grid system.

According to Ofgem, many renewable projects waiting for connections to the transmission system often face long delays in obtaining planning consent.

Until recently, requests for connection were dealt with on a first-come, first-served basis, meaning a generator without planning consent could be nearer the front of the queue than one that does, simply because it approached National Grid, the company that operates the power transmission system, earlier.

To reduce these delays, Ofgem and the government are urging National Grid to give priority to projects that are closest to being ready to use the system.

This means generators that have planning permission, or have sufficient finance in place to commit to getting a connection, will be nearer the front of the queue. The benefits of this approach are being seen as some unviable projects have fallen out of the queue.

About 40 gigawatts of new electricity generation, including around 22 gigawatts of renewable capacity, is seeking connection to the UK-wide network by 2017.

This would increase the UK's total generation capacity contracted to connect to the transmission system by more than 50% from 77 gigawatts to around 120 gigawatts. New nuclear generation could push this figure much higher.

However, this figure does not take into account the nuclear, coal and oil-fired generation that is expected to disconnect from the system during the next nine years as it is uncertain exactly how many power stations this will involve.

More renewable projects could be connected using innovative engineering and long-term sharing of transmission capacity between conventional and green electricity generators.

However, planning is a formidable obstacle to renewables and the upgrades to the networks that are needed to accommodate them, such as the reinforcement of the Beauly-Denny power line in central Scotland. Ofgem said this upgrade is subject to a planning inquiry that has not yet concluded.