UK Parliament Eases Path for Renewable Energy Projects Plans

As the last session of the UKParliament drew to a close in Ww32 prior to the Summer recess, it approved the UK Government’s final set of National Policy Statements (NPS) on energy. These included much-needed plans to speed up the planning process for major renewable energy projects.

The UK Government’s Minister for Energy, Charles Hendry, warned that without urgent improvements to Britain’s power supply infrastructure, the country could be facing blackouts. Major renewable energy schemes, including wind power, needed to be approved more quickly, not only to benefit the regions in which the schemes were planned, but also to cut carbon emissions and increase the overall level of renewable energy supplies. He said “This is a further important milestone in the government’s programme to secure affordable, low carbon energy”. It was recognised that the planning system in the UK was not up to scratch and resulted in indecision and delay in planning and approving major energy projects, with the result that some were simply not built.

The NPSs will be used by the Infrastructure Planning Commission (IPC), the independent body that examines applications for UK nationally significant infrastructure projects, such as large wind farms, will now use the NPSs to inform its planning decisions. Because the Government have said that they will scrap the IPC, it’s assumed that whatever local authority bodies take over responsibility for considering plans, they too will be guided by the NPSs.

Prior to Parliamentary approval the draft NPSs were subject to public and Parliamentary scrutiny, which was concluded at the end of January. During the period of consultations public events were held in Manchester, London and Bristol and over 2500 people responded to the consultation. The UK Department of Energy and Climate Change has set out an action plan/roadmap of Renewable energies to get the UK to its 2020 target of carbon emission reduction and to drive down the cost of renewable energy production over time. It identifies the eight technologies that have either the greatest potential to help the UK meet the 2020 target in a cost-effective and sustainable way, or offer great potential for the decades that follow. These technologies are: