Fivefold increase in grid consents required, NIC warns

The rate at which transmission projects are granted planning consent must increase fivefold in order to deliver the government’s 2035 target to decarbonise the electricity system, the National Infrastructure Commission (NIC) has warned.

In its latest annual progress review, the statutory infrastructure advisor says there has been progress on renewable deployment over the last year but warns that delivery is a “major challenge” and transmission infrastructure is becoming a “significant blocker”.

The planning system will need to move more quickly to enable sufficient deployment of renewable generation, it says.

According to analysis carried out by the NIC, the government’s electricity decarbonisation target will require development consents for more than 17 transmission projects in the next four years, which it says is a fivefold increase on current rates.

The government and Ofgem must act urgently to ensure that sufficient network capacity can be delivered to support the deployment of renewables.

And the government should bring forward promised reforms to allow projects to be built more quickly, including “long overdue” updates to the energy National Policy Statements and increasing capacity across the planning system.

The report also warns that the government’s target to install 300,000 electric vehicle (EV) charging points by 2030 is at risk even if recent increases in the rate of deployment continue.

It acknowledges that if charge point installations continue to grow at around 30% per year, as they have done in recent years, the 300,000 target will be met.

However if barriers remain, such as “challenging” commercial models for on street charging or lack of local leadership, hitting this target is unlikely to happen.

And if charge point deployment increases linearly by the same number as in recent years, installations will fall “well short” of 300,000, according to the NIC.

If deployment of charge points does not accelerate rapidly, the report says there is a “significant risk” that the government’s target for ending the sale of petrol and diesel cars and vans by 2030 will be missed.

The report also warns that little progress has been made on energy efficiency or decarbonising heat this year and a concrete plan is lacking for delivering improvements in these areas.

Unless the growth rate of heat pump deployment increases significantly, the government’s target to install 600,000 of the devices by 2028 will be missed.

Key missing policies include how the planned low-carbon heating obligation on boiler manufacturers would work.

There is “no long term plan” for the amount of government funding that will be required to deliver the transition to low carbon heat and the Boiler Upgrade Scheme is “too small and too short term to materially scale up heat pump deployment”.

Challenges on both energy efficiency and low carbon heating must be “urgently” resolved in order to meet the government’s statutory Sixth Carbon Budget.

Water sector

On water, the NIC says it is critical that the planning system is fit for purpose and progress is made rapidly in order to deliver the minimum of twelve nationally significant infrastructure projects which will require consent by 2030.

The report also says it is “not clear” that current policies on water efficient homes and water efficient product labelling are sufficient to achieve the government’s consumption target of 110 litres per person per day by 2050.

Overall, the report says the government will need to take some strategic bets, such as its £20 billion Budget commitment to support carbon capture, and focus on the “small number of areas where it can have a big impact and make bold decisions”.

Making “small steps forward in all directions” will not bring about the “scale of change in infrastructure needed to meet the Sixth Carbon Budget and deliver a net zero economy”.

To get back on track the commission recommends that the government embeds four key principles in its infrastructure policy making: developing staying power to achieve long term goals; fewer but bigger and better from central government interventions, devolving funding and decision making to local areas and removing barriers to delivery on the ground.

The NIC is due to publish a review on how to accelerate the planning system for major infrastructure projects later this spring.