Renewables industry urges planning body to fix broken system

The renewables industry has offered a cautious welcome to the government's decision this week to replace the independent Infrastructure Planning Commission (IPC) with a ministerial-led Major Infrastructure Planning Unit (MIPU), but experts warned low carbon investment could be curtailed if the new body fails to address current planning delays.

Earlier this week, decentralisation minister Greg Clark said the government would axe the IPC and replace it with the MIPU, arguing the new body would be more democratically accountable when making planning decisions about major infrastructure projects, such as large scale offshore wind farms and biomass power plants.

The MIPU, which will be based in the Planning Inspectorate, will require ministers rather than unelected officials to make the final decision on projects.

Clark also committed to press on with the previous government’s Draft National Policy Statements (DNPS), which were intended to inform decisions taken by the IPC. He said further details on how DNPS will be affect decisions taken by the new body will be released in the summer.

Businesses were divided over the decision, with some welcoming the fact that minsiters will have the final decision on major projects and others warning that political considerations could further delay planning processes and hamper the development of renewable energy projects.

Speaking to BusinessGreen.com, Siemens Energy business development manager Matthew Knight warned that streamlining the UK's planning regime is essential if it is to maximise the economic benefits of wind energy projects.

"If the planning system chokes off the flow of UK projects the supply chain will have to base itself elsewhere," he said. "Put simply the North Sea is one big market for the offshore wind industry. The majority of the jobs will go not to the country with the largest eventual programme, but to the country that gets a sustained pipeline of projects going first."

He added that currently the planning system was putting the long term health of the industry at risks. "The UK has the best sites and the largest programme for offshore wind, and developers are trying to get projects underway," he explained. "However we have had just one new offshore wind connection project to tender in the last 12 months, meanwhile my colleagues in Germany are bidding for a dozen projects."

The Renewable Energy Association (REA) welcomed the abolition of the IPC, and expressed optimism that the changes would speed up planning decisions and ensure that ministers will no longer be able to delay planning approval for political gain.

"It used to be that they would wait for an opportune moment to make the announcement, but they've got a renewable energy directive now so there's no excuse for them to do that," said REA chief executive Gaynor Hartnell.

However, she added that the reforms do not deal with those planning delays faced by "the vast majority" of renewable energy projects which are below 50MW.