UK energy department BEIS has unveiled plans to change national planning rules for co-located storage projects in England with a combined capacity of over 50MW.
In its Treatment of Electricity Storage Within the Planning System consultation, BEIS proposes to amend the Planning Act 2008 to establish a new capacity threshold for co-located projects applying to the centralised Nationally Significant Infrastructure Projects regime.
The proposals mean co-located storage and renewables projects in England will not need to go through the time-consuming NSIP process if either the capacity of the storage element is more than 50MW or the capacity excluding any electricity storage is more than 50MW.
The NSIP threshold for standalone storage projects will remain at 50MW.
Renewable Energy Association head of policy Frank Gordon gave a broad welcome to the proposals, saying the move would make it easier for grid-scale storage developers to secure planning permission.
“While we welcome this, in our response to this consultation we will urge the government to go further, for example the capacity threshold being set at 50MW could be limiting and more can be done to facilitate deployment by granting expanded permitted development rights,” he added.
The Treatment of Electricity Storage Within the Planning System consultation will close on 25 March.