“Green Day” brings us the revised draft Energy National Policy Statements

United Kingdom

The Department for Energy Security and Net Zero has published their long awaited revised energy National Policy Statements (NPS) for consultation. The drafts can be found here. This marks an important, and long-awaited, step as the current NPSs are over a decade old and the previous consultation drafts of the NPSs were issued for consultation in September 2021.

Once designated, the NPS will be the primary basis for decisions on development consent order (DCO) applications relating to energy nationally significant infrastructure projects (NSIPs). The Government will then be under a statutory duty to decide DCO applications for energy NSIPs in accordance with the designated NPS (subject to certain exceptions), so the designation of the NPS will provide certainty to the Government’s decision-making process.

A consultation has also been issued for the Community Benefits for Electricity Transmission Network Infrastructure which can be found here. The purpose of this consultation is based on the Government’s intention to introduce the necessary measures to ensure communities feel they are positively benefitting from hosting electricity transmission network infrastructure (including infrastructure associated with offshore wind and interconnectors) that is supporting the delivery of national objectives.

The consultations were published alongside Powering Up Britain, which sets out the Government’s approach to energy security and net zero. Alongside this, the Government has also published Powering Up Britain: Energy Security Plan and Powering Up Britain: Net Zero Growth Plan.

We will be publishing a series of LawNows over the Easter period which consider the key changes made to the previous September 2021 drafts of the five energy NPS’ (some of which have changed fairly substantially to reflect significant developments in the energy planning space). We will also be considering the Community Benefit consultation and other main “Powering Up Britain” proposals.

 

Both consultations close on 25 May 2023.