The paper seeks to, “direct decision makers to give significant weight to the benefits associated with renewable and low carbon energy generation, and proposals’ contribution to meeting a net zero future. In doing so, this aims to increase the likelihood of local planning authorities granting permission to renewable energy schemes and contribute to reaching zero carbon electricity generation by 2030.”
The proposed amendments say that local authorities “should support planning applications for all forms of renewable and low carbon development,” giving, “significant weight… to renewable energy generation and a net zero future.” A further change would recognise that “even small-scale and community-led projects provide a valuable contribution to renewable energy generation and a net zero future.”
Agricultural land
One the consultation’s most critical aspects concerns the use of agricultural land.
Doing so would effectively remove a fundamental disparity between how applications for solar farms are considered by central and local government. This should help make the rules clearer for decision makers, make refusals less common, reduce the likelihood of appeals and therefore accelerate decarbonising the power system.
The EN-3 document governs applications for English solar farms with a capacity of 50MW or more and those above 350MW in Wales.[3] These are treated as Nationally Significant Infrastructure Projects (NSIPs) and considered by the Department for Energy Security and Net Zero, on advice from the Planning Inspectorate.
EN-3 defines renewable energy generation as “Critical National Priority” infrastructure, whose “national security, economic, commercial and net zero benefits” generally outweigh any impacts. It adds that the grade of agricultural land that may be used for them “should not be a predominating factor” in determining applications.
In contrast, the current NPPF refers to the consideration of agricultural land for food production, which local planning authorities have used to refuse planning permission for solar farms. The footnote was added under the Conservatives last year.
“The industry will be glad to see the back of this provision in the NPPF, which was used a pretext for planning refusals. As energy secretary Ed Miliband said recently, solar farms do not pose a threat to the nation’s food security – and never will,” said Chris Hewett, chief executive of Solar Energy UK.
Raising thresholds
Another key aspect of the consultation is raising the 50MW threshold to 150MW.
Applications for Development Consent Orders for NSIPs come with greater burdens than those made under the Town and Country Planning Act (TCPA). More resources must be deployed towards the application itself and accompanying environmental assessment and consultation activities. Accordingly, few projects have come forward in the 50-150MW range as developers have not considered them cost effective. The department argues that the proposal should remedy this.
However, NSIP applications come with the advantage of clarity, whereas decisions taken under the TCPA can be inconsistent. Local planning authorities and the Planning Inspectorate have taken differing positions on the weight to be given to decarbonising the power system, high-quality farmland, visual impacts and development within the Green Belt. This has led to many successful appeals to the Secretary of State, with the cost of their unsuccessful defence falling on the taxpayer.
Remaining cautious
Although the changes to the NPPF are intended to resolve such issues, Solar Energy UK remains cautious about changing the 50MW threshold. The industry will consider the proposals and to what extent they would accelerate solar deployment in the next decade, which is the outcome we all want to see. The merits of changing the threshold have been debated for many years.
Changing the definition of NSIP does have precedent: battery energy storage systems were transferred to the TCPA in 2020, removing inappropriate costs and encouraging larger projects to be put forward, helping further decarbonise and improve the resilience the UK’s energy system.