Planning cuts put 40GW wind goal ‘at risk’

RenewableUK has expressed concern that government cuts to the Planning Inspectorate’s budget are “inconsistent” with Boris Johnson’s target to quadruple offshore wind capacity by 2030.

In its response to the government’s suite of draft energy national policy statements (NPSs), the renewable energy umbrella body says the inspectorate requires “appropriate resourcing” to handle the growing volume of applications to support the prime minister’s 40GW offshore wind goal.

The inspectorate vets nationally significant infrastructure projects (NSIPs) such as wind farms, rather than local councils.

The response, submitted to the Department for Business, Energy & Industrial Strategy (BEIS) earlier this week, says the timelines for projects often overlap in response to leasing and Contract for Difference allocation rounds.

“This can mean multiple, significant infrastructure projects can enter the NSIP (nationally significant infrastructure project) process at the same time.”

Ensuring the availability of sufficient resource to the inspectorate and other stakeholders are “key” to facilitating timely consents, which will support the delivery of the 2030 offshore wind deployment targets, says the response, which has been seen exclusively by Utility Week.

In this context, RenewableUK expresses concern about proposals in the inspectorate’s recently published 2021-25 business plan, which contains a target of a 5% reduction in the agency’s budget by the middle of this decade.

It says: “This is inconsistent with the government’s ambitions to speed up infrastructure consenting and facilitate the delivery of offshore wind projects in UK’s waters.”

The response also expresses concern that the NPSs, which were published in September for consultation, still contain insufficient focus on net zero, which it says must now be treated with “paramount importance” in the revised main energy policy statement EN-1.

The commitment to net zero in the decision-making process should be strengthened in the over-arching EN-1 document and greater weighting and priority given to the climate emergency and its impacts, the response adds.

While welcoming the inclusion of net-zero targets in the renewable energy NPS EN-3, the response says the document should be strengthened to support the development of offshore wind and solar PV, including a generation target for deploying the latter.

RenewableUK also calls for presumption in favour of developing projects, which will support increased offshore wind generation, and a greater recognition of the long-term benefits from anticipatory investment in upgrading network infrastructure required to hit net-zero targets.

Barnaby Wharton, RenewableUK’s director of future electricity systems, said: “The current drafts of the revised NPS documents do not focus nearly enough on delivering net zero and we would welcome further engagement with BEIS to ensure that this is altered and reflected appropriately. Without this, the timely delivery of critically important energy infrastructure will be at risk.

“We need to see a greater emphasis on the role of Nationally Significant Infrastructure Projects in reducing the impacts of climate change, including not only wind, solar and marine energy, but also ramping up the deployment of renewable hydrogen projects. We welcome the government’s aim to streamline the planning process – in particularly the ambition to cut timescales by up to 50% for some projects entering the NSIP regime from September 2023.

“The proposal by BEIS to establish a team of planning experts to accelerate the consenting process could address some of the challenges which developers face. Local planning authorities must also work constructively with developers to deliver these essential projects.”