Kwarteng grants fresh consent for Norfolk Vanguard wind farm

Kwasi Kwarteng has awarded fresh consent for Vattenfall’s plans for 1.8GW of wind turbines off the coast of Norfolk, which were blocked by the High Court nearly a year ago.

The Planning Inspectorate announced on Friday (11 February) that the Swedish utility has been granted a development consent order (DCO) by the business and energy secretary to push ahead with its Norfolk Vanguard offshore wind farm.

A High Court judge overturned a previous DCO, issued by Alok Sharma in 2019, after ruling that Kwarteng’s predecessor had acted unlawfully by failing to provide adequate justification for not considering the cumulative impacts of the co-located onshore infrastructure for Norfolk Vanguard and its similar-sized sister project, Norfolk Boreas, when granting planning permission for the former.

The proposed development includes a high voltage direct current cable, which comes ashore at the Norfolk coastal village of Happisburgh, 400 km from the site of the Vanguard wind farm itself.

The cable then runs underground for another 60km to two substations near the village of Necton.

The decision letter said Kwarteng received a “significant number” of consultation responses arguing that that the development should be refused or deferred ahead of the outcome of the Offshore Transmission Network Review, which is currently being carried out by the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy and Ofgem.

However, refusing the entire development only on grid connection grounds or the onshore transmission element would “not be appropriate”, the secretary of state wrote.

He added that the scheme’s proposed onshore transmission element complies with the current policy and regulatory regime as set out in the national policy statements for energy.

Kwarteng concluded that the “pressing need” for sources of renewable electricity outweighs the “substantial harm” that the Vanguard scheme will cause to the local landscape.

“On balance, the substantial benefits of the development, in particular in terms of its contribution of 1.8GW of renewable electricity to the urgent need to decarbonise the electricity supply, outweigh its negative impacts,” he stated.

The government gave the go-ahead for the Norfolk Boreas project in December.

Responding to the latest announcement, Helene Bistrom, head of business area wind at Vattenfall, said: “Norfolk Vanguard and Norfolk Boreas are industry leading projects, with their designs coordinated to minimise the impact on the environment and communities. We are very pleased to receive consent for Norfolk Vanguard.

“Although the decision was unfortunately made too late to enable us to bid this project in to the current Contracts for Difference auction round four, we will now look into potential opportunities to progress this project, working closely with the supply chain and local communities.”

RenewableUK’s chief executive Dan McGrail commented: “To help the UK to reach net zero emissions as fast as possible, the government has set the industry a target of nearly quadrupling our current offshore wind capacity to 40 gigawatts by the end of this decade.

“Giving the go-ahead to a major project like Norfolk Vanguard is a big boost to help us to get there. It also demonstrates to the rest of the world that the UK is committed to taking significant practical action against climate change.”