The UK Government (Business Energy and Industrial Strategy “ BEIS) are currently carrying out consultation on the treatment of electricity storage schemes within the planning system. This follows a previous consultation that took place in January 2019.
The consultationcloses on 10 December and includes the draft legislation required to implement BEIS’s proposals (making amendments to the Planning Act 2008 and the Electricity Act 1989). BEIS anticipate the statutory instruments will be enacted around six months after the consultation closes (i.e. summer 2020).
Currently, in England electricity storage schemes over 50MW capacity are determined by the UK Government under the NSIP regime. In Wales, the Welsh Government has already carved out storage from their Developments of National Significance regime meaning that all storage schemes (regardless of size) are determined under the Town and Country Planning Act (TCPA). The new proposals to remove the threshold would mean that all electricity storage projects in England and Wales (except pumped storage) will be consented by local planning authorities under the TCPA.
those (co-location) storage projects that are being developed in conjunction with an NSIP electricity generating station such as a wind farm (in England), the proposals mean that developers have the option of including the storage element as associated development, consented in the “‘consent order “‘(Development Consent Order) for that NSIP or considered separately under the TCPA. This also applies retrospectively for the latter i.e. developers or promoters of windfarm or solar projects consented at less than 50MW capacity under the TCPA may be able to add a storage element to the planning permission by the relatively straightforward process of varying that consent, regardless of it resulting in a combined capacity of over 50MW.
The current 50MW threshold was established in the 2008 Planning Act prior to the advent of commercially viable large-scale storage and sought to ensure an appropriate and robust level of assessment commensurate with the likely impacts of 50MW+ generation schemes. However, these new proposals reflect the feedback from the January consultation which highlighted that the 50MW threshold was stifling investment by limiting scale; The Nationally Significant Infrastructure Projects (NSIP) consenting regime is a comparatively lengthy, expensive and complex process compared to schemes submitted under the TCPA and for battery storage, the sheer effort and resource required for the NSIP route is now considered disproportionate given the relatively limited environmental impact of schemes.
