Revised energy NPS does not provide necessary ‘step change’

The government’s shake up of the energy planning regime does not go enough to deliver the step change in transmission infrastructure required to help deliver Boris Johnson’s offshore wind ambitions, National Grid has told MPs.

The Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (BEIS) Committee began its inquiry on Tuesday (7 December) into the revised energy National Policy Statement (NPS) – the suite of guidance that the government has just finished consulting on.

Aled Rowlands, National Grid’s head of corporate affairs for electricity transmission, told the committee that the new headline commitments to the government’s net zero goal in the draft NPS were not sufficiently “hard wired” into how the guidance will be applied when making decisions on individual projects.

He said: “While welcome, the current draft doesn’t provide the step change we will need to deliver the scale of National Significant Infrastructure Projects that we will require to deliver the government’s ambitions.”

The NPS still gives more weight to the local impacts of projects than wider benefits that they deliver, Rowlands said: “The NPS talks about the environmental impact individual schemes will have on a local area but doesn’t give a context for what projects will deliver on a larger scale.

“At the moment, the NPS just looks at the local negative impacts and doesn’t give weight to the national gains these projects will deliver,” he said, adding that the weighting exercise for projects should also take account of wider environmental benefits they can deliver.

Emma Pinchbeck, chief executive of trade association Energy UK, agreed that while it is a “huge step forward” for net zero to be recognised in the NPS, the “problem is the next level of detail”

However, Rowlands welcomed the support in the electricity networks infrastructure NPS for burying underground transmission cables, which run through national parks and Areas of Outstanding Natural Beauty, rather than erecting them on pylons.

Pinchbeck also said she is disappointed” that references to onshore wind had been removed from the renewable energy NPS.

“When you don’t have a specific mention of a technology in a text, it means less clarity for planners about how and where it can be developed and indicates a lack of government ambition for that technology.

“It’s particularly unfortunate because what we know about the next decade is that we will need every tool in the box,” she said, adding that there is a “lack of join up” between the NPS and the recent re-inclusion of onshore wind in the Contracts for Difference auction process.

But National Infrastructure Commission chief economist James Richardson said the greater planning support for onshore wind in Wales and Scotland should enable sufficient power to be generated from this source because it is more abundant in those parts of the UK.

“We think you can deliver the onshore wind needed in planning system because it can be delivered in Scotland and Wales.”

At the same time, he said the continuing lack of support for onshore wind in English planning guidance “doesn’t help” decarbonisation efforts and will ultimately increase overall electricity system costs.