Government proposals to remove a ‘capacity cap’ to help fast-track energy storage projects in England have been welcomed by renewables industry leaders.
The Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy has launched a consultation into whether existing planning policy regulations applying to large-scale storage projects with a capacity of 50MW or more should be changed.
UK Renewable Energy Association (REA) head of policy Frank Gordon (pictured) praised the idea— but urged ministers to “go further”.
The REA said the proposals would mean co-located storage and renewables projects in England would not need to go through “the time-consuming national planning process, if either the capacity of the storage element is more than 50MW or the capacity excluding any electricity storage is more than 50MW”.
Gordon said: “With this consultation the government is proposing to make it easier for grid-scale storage to secure planning permission, which will remove a crucial barrier to this promising sector’s growth and in turn will support job creation in clean tech design, manufacturing, and operations.”
However, Gordon said setting the capacity threshold at 50MW “could be limiting and more can be done to facilitate deployment by granting expanded permitted development rights”.
Details of the consultation, which ends on 25 March, are online.
