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The #Electricity generation price is negative again, with over 85% being provided through renewable sources. Over 5% is being used to store energy in reservoirs to be used later and currently the #UK is even a net exporter of energy to other countries, which is an infrequent occurrence.

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Medford Square shut after manholes erupt in flames
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GREEN STEEL: Port Talbot’s giant new furnace is built and on its way — as Tata shows off a year of transformation

The centrepiece of Tata Steel’s £1.25bn transformation of Port Talbot — its giant new electric arc furnace — has been built and is now making its way to south Wales.

In a project update, the company said the main components of the furnace had been fabricated and were beginning their journey to Port Talbot from sites around the world.

The furnace has been designed and made by the Italian metals technology firm Tenova, and is billed as one of the largest of its kind ever built, with a main shell measuring more than nine metres across.

Once running, it will be capable of producing 3.2 million tonnes of steel a year, melting scrap using electricity rather than the coal-fired blast furnaces that defined the site for generations.

The update came in the latest instalment of Tata’s own video series charting the rebuild, in which a presenter and project director tour the site a year on from when much of it was still open ground.

Tata’s project director said the big parts were ready to ship, with roughly a two-month sailing ahead of them before they arrive to be offloaded.

The components are being delivered in 11 separate lots, spread out over the coming year, the company said.

According to Tata, the wider project is “on plan” and broadly on time, with the director describing the progress over the past year as a “morale booster” for the workforce.

Around 1,200 people are expected to be working on the site at peak, across civil, mechanical, electrical and piping work.

The video showed the scale of the groundworks — including a former cooling lagoon partly filled with some 220,000 tonnes of stone, and a separate area cleared of around 400,000 tonnes of material.

The footage also showed work on the site’s future scrap yard, which will handle around 70,000 tonnes of scrap a week to feed the new furnace

Nearby, contractors for National Grid are piling the ground for a 275,000-volt substation that will power the furnace, on land the grid operator now leases from Tata.

The furnace site itself was where the UK’s Business and Trade Secretary, Peter Kyle, launched the government’s Steel Strategy in March, and where a groundbreaking ceremony was held in July last year.

Tata’s confident tone follows a turbulent few weeks for the project, however.

Earlier this month, Swansea Bay News reported that the furnace could be delayed by up to eight months over a hold-up in its power connection, prompting cross-party calls for answers and a row over who knew what, and when.

An earlier shipment of furnace parts had also been pushed back by several weeks, with reports linking the delay to rising shipping costs amid tensions in the Middle East.

The switch to electric arc steelmaking, backed by £500m of UK Government funding, is central to Tata’s plan to cut emissions at Port Talbot — but it came at the cost of thousands of jobs when the blast furnaces closed.

A full video tour of the site is available on Tata Steel’s YouTube channel.

Related stories from Swansea Bay News

Port Talbot’s £1.25bn furnace could be delayed by up to eight months over power hold-up
The grid connection problem that put the project’s timetable in doubt.

Cross-party calls for answers over Port Talbot furnace setback
Politicians press Tata and National Grid over the delay.

Tata ‘confident’ furnace project unaffected after Port Talbot fire
The company’s response after a fire at the steelworks this month.

ENERGY: South Wales could be a clean power giant — so why are bills still high, and what’s holding it back?

South Wales has been told, again and again, that it could be one of the powerhouses of Britain’s clean-energy future.

Off its coast lies some of the best wind and tidal potential in Europe. Above Port Talbot, plans have been drawn for solar farms big enough to power tens of thousands of homes. And in Swansea Bay, the long-held dream of a tidal lagoon has been edging back to life.

Yet many families across the region are still choosing between heating and eating, in homes that leak warmth and on bills that have stayed stubbornly high.

That gap — between the promise and the reality — was at the heart of a gathering of energy chiefs in Swansea this week.

The National Energy System Operator (NESO), the publicly owned body now responsible for planning Britain’s electricity network, held a forum at the Swansea.com Stadium, one of just two it is holding in Wales.

The job NESO has been handed is enormous: to plan the biggest upgrade of the energy grid in generations, deciding what gets built, where, and when.

And for South Wales, the stakes could hardly be higher — because the region’s clean-energy ambitions keep running into the same wall.

The power is there to be harvested. The problem is getting it to where it is needed.

NESO’s Head of Wales, Aled Rowlands, told the forum that while Wales had “a rich energy and industrial heritage”, it faced real obstacles — “uneven connectivity, grid constraints and fuel poverty”.

In plain terms, the grid — the network of cables, substations and pylons that moves electricity around — was largely built for a different age, and cannot yet carry all the new power the region could produce, or deliver all the power that industry now needs.

There is no clearer example than just down the road in Port Talbot.

Tata Steel is building a £1.25bn electric arc furnace to make greener steel — but the furnace needs a vast new electricity connection to run, and that connection has been caught up in delays that could push the project back to 2028.

The setback has triggered cross-party alarm at the Senedd, with politicians pressing Tata and National Grid for answers, and warning of fresh uncertainty for the town’s steelworkers.

If even a flagship national project like green steel can be left waiting for the grid to catch up, it shows the scale of the problem the region faces.

That bottleneck has real consequences. When the network is full or upgrades run late, new projects — and the jobs and investment that come with them — can be delayed for years, or sent elsewhere.

It is why developers say what happens next matters so much. Ben Burggraaf, chief executive of Net Zero Industry Wales, told the Swansea forum that Wales had the chance to become “a leading clean energy transition hub” — but only if the investment in grid infrastructure actually followed.

The clean-energy promise is real, and already taking shape. Plans for a £64m floating wind hub at Port Talbot could create up to 5,000 jobs, while the area’s ports sit at the centre of a multi-billion-pound offshore wind push.

It is the kind of future many hope can replace what was lost when Port Talbot’s blast furnaces closed.

But building the grid to carry all that power comes at a cost that is increasingly visible in the landscape — and increasingly contested.

Across Carmarthenshire, communities have fought back against a wave of pylon and energy-park plans, warning of the “industrialisation” of the countryside and accusing developers of “greed energy, not green energy”.

Those tensions — clean power on one side, the pylons and cables needed to move it on the other — are exactly the choices NESO’s planning is meant to navigate.

For ordinary households, the question is simpler: when does any of this start bringing bills down?

Wales has long had some of the leakiest housing stock in Britain, with most Welsh homes losing money through poor insulation — a problem that pushes up bills regardless of how much clean power is generated nearby.

NESO says a more joined-up plan should, in time, strengthen the network, support cleaner power and deliver “the best possible value for bill payers”.

Whether that promise is felt in people’s pockets — and whether the jobs and investment land in South Wales rather than somewhere else — is the test that matters.

For now, the region sits on an awkward paradox: rich in the energy of the future, but not yet able to plug it all in.

Related stories from Swansea Bay News

Green steel delay over furnace grid connection
Why Port Talbot’s electric arc furnace is left waiting for power.

£64m Port Talbot wind hub ‘could create 5,000 jobs’
The floating wind plan that could transform the town.

Swansea lagoon dream ‘back on track’
Fresh hope for the long-awaited tidal lagoon.

Volunteers Help Improve Sensory Nature Space at Swansea Resource Centre

https://fed.brid.gy/r/https://www.goodnewspost.co.uk/volunteers-help-improve-sensory-nature-space-at-swansea-resource-centre/

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Once again, we’re in negative price territory for #Electricity generation with over 80% coming from #RenewableEnergy sources and we’re also net-exporting it to other countries and putting energy into #PumpedStorage too.

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#UK #Renewables #Enviornment

GREEN STEEL DELAY: ‘No formal change’ to furnace timetable — as row breaks out over who knew what

A political row has broken out in the Senedd over who knew what — and when — about the delay to Port Talbot‘s £1.25bn electric arc furnace.

News that the furnace could be delayed by up to eight months because of a hold-up to its National Grid power connection emerged on 7 June — days after a major fire at the steelworks’ Cold Mill.

Welsh Conservative shadow minister for economy, energy and planning Janet Finch-Saunders MS raised the issue during an emergency statement in the Senedd on Wednesday following the fire — saying that while attention had focused on the blaze, concerns about delays to the furnace may have been known for weeks.

It was reported on 7 June that Tata Steel had discussed potential delays linked to National Grid connectivity issues with “investors” during a conference call around a month earlier.

Ms Finch-Saunders is seeking clarity on whether those “investors” included the UK Government — which is putting £500m towards the £1.25bn project.

“If UK Government Ministers were aware of the issue a month ago, were Welsh Government Ministers informed? If Welsh Government were not informed, why not? If Welsh Government were informed, why did the Economy Minister tell the Senedd today that he only became aware of the delay on Monday?” she said.

“We now need a clear timeline setting out exactly when concerns first emerged and who was told. Port Talbot workers and their families deserve answers.”

The Welsh Conservatives are also seeking clarification on whether any of the £80m transition fund established by the previous UK Conservative government — to support workers at risk of losing their jobs — remains available if the delays create further financial problems for affected workers.

But First Minister Rhun ap Iorwerth defended his government’s handling of the situation — telling the Senedd that Cabinet Minister for Enterprise, Connectivity and Energy Adam Price had spoken directly with Tata Steel UK’s chief executive the previous day.

“My government is determined to do all that we can to support investment at TATA,” he said. “My minister for enterprise, connectivity and energy did speak yesterday with Tata Steel UK’s Chief Executive Officer in order to discuss the way ahead in terms of the electricity connection.

“Many of the powers of course are in the hands of the UK Government, but we will do everything in our powers as a Welsh Government to facilitate progress towards the delivery of that investment. That is why my minister acted so quickly.”

The First Minister also took aim at opposition parties’ records on steel: “The contribution made last year by Reform was to say that they wanted to bring back a defunct blast furnace to secure the future of Port Talbot, while my party put plans on the table that could have retained, we believe, virgin steel making in Port Talbot.”

Meanwhile, Aberafan Maesteg MP Stephen Kinnock — whose constituency includes the steelworks — said he had met Tata for a briefing on the implications of the fire, and revealed the company is looking at reviving its mothballed cold mill at Llanwern to maintain supply to customers.

“They have acted at speed to limit disruption and are looking at options to maintain supply to their customers, including by reviving the previously mothballed cold mill in Llanwern,” he said in a statement issued on 10 June. “Tata are working with the unions to look at the deployment / re-deployment of personnel working across both the Pickle Line and Cold Mill at Port Talbot.”

On the furnace delay, Mr Kinnock said: “I also received an update on reports of potential delays to the EAF project. There is no formal change in the timetable at this stage and National Grid, UK Government and Tata Steel are continuing to work together to deliver the project in a timely fashion.”

He also thanked firefighters “for their efforts in bringing the blaze under control and the professionalism of Tata’s workforce”, saying the response meant there were “thankfully no injuries”.

The electric arc furnace is the centrepiece of Tata’s transition at Port Talbot following the closure of the works’ blast furnaces, and the connection delay has already prompted cross-party calls for answers from Tata and National Grid — with former Aberavon MS David Rees among those calling for National Grid to face penalties over the hold-up.

The Welsh Government’s response to the delay — and the Conservatives’ demand for a timeline — comes with the steelworks still recovering from the Cold Mill fire, which burned for two days earlier this month and caused part of the building to collapse.

Answers to the questions of who knew about the delay, and when, are now awaited from both governments.

Related stories from Swansea Bay News

GREEN STEEL: Port Talbot’s £1.25bn furnace could be delayed by up to eight months over power hold-up
How the delay first emerged.

GREEN STEEL DELAY: Cross-party calls for answers over Port Talbot furnace setback as politicians press Tata and National Grid
The political reaction to the setback.

PORT TALBOT: Steelworks fire burns into a second day as part of the building collapses — with union warning over jobs
The fire at the works earlier this month.

Photo of the Day 12th June 2026.

On This Day 12th June 1993.

On This Day 12th June 2014.

Frankfurt Friday 12th June 2026.

GREEN STEEL DELAY: Cross-party calls for answers over Port Talbot furnace setback as politicians press Tata and National Grid

The delay to Port Talbot’s new electric arc furnace has prompted a cross-party call for answers at the Senedd, with members pressing both Tata Steel and the National Grid.

The £1.25bn furnace, central to the future of steelmaking in the town, could be held up by up to eight months because of delays to the power infrastructure the National Grid is building to run it.

Elyn Stephens, Plaid Cymru MS for Afan Ogwr Rhondda, said the delay was “another blow to the communities I represent”.

She said it meant a longer wait for much-needed jobs and economic regeneration, and created further uncertainty for local residents.

“I have contacted Tata directly this afternoon and will be making further representations tomorrow,” she said.

“People in Port Talbot deserve honesty and transparency about when this development is expected to be delivered.”

Huw Irranca-Davies, Labour MS for Afan Ogwr Rhondda, said the news — coming on top of the recent fire at the works — had caused understandable concern for the workforce, unions and the wider supply chain across Wales.

He said he had already been in contact with Tata to seek assurances that the transition to electric steelmaking was proceeding and that the jobs relying on it were protected.

Irranca-Davies said he understood Tata might issue a further statement in the coming days, which he hoped would offer reassurance that the difficulties would be overcome.

He added that he had accepted a place alongside other local members on the Tata Transition Board, and had asked the UK government and the new Welsh Government — including the Cabinet Minister for Enterprise, Adam Price — to support the move to electric arc production.

The delay also drew comment from the Welsh Conservatives. Janet Finch-Saunders, the party’s shadow minister for enterprise, connectivity and energy, called the situation “deeply concerning”.

She said the furnace was “a vital investment for the future of Welsh steelmaking, jobs and economic growth”, and that the National Grid and the UK government “must urgently work together to resolve these connectivity issues and ensure this strategically important project is delivered without further delay”.

The interventions follow a similar call from David Rees, the former Aberavon MS who chaired the Senedd’s cross-party group on steel, who said the National Grid should face penalties if the connection slipped further.

The electric arc furnace is designed to make lower-carbon “green steel” by melting scrap rather than burning coal, replacing the blast furnaces that closed in 2024 with the loss of around 2,000 jobs — part of a wider £1.25bn transformation of the works.

It relies on a major grid upgrade — including a major substation expansion approved by the council earlier this year — which the National Grid has said is running late because of ground conditions and planning issues.

Tata has said the project timeline “continues to evolve” and that it is working to deliver the furnace “safely and as quickly as possible”.

Related stories from Swansea Bay News

GREEN STEEL: Port Talbot’s £1.25bn furnace could be delayed by up to eight months over power hold-up
Tata’s warning over the delayed grid connection.

GREEN STEEL DELAY: Former Aberavon MS says National Grid should face penalties
David Rees calls for penalties if the connection slips further.

‘Green power’ boost for Port Talbot as council green-lights major substation expansion
The substation upgrade central to powering the new furnace.

STEELWORKS FIRE: Tata says blaze restricted to ‘confined area’ of Cold Mill
A separate fire at the site earlier this month.