The Government’s Planning and Infrastructure Bill has a raft of measures to help speed the construction of new energy infrastructure with reforms of planning decisions and a goal to cut new grid connections by up to seven years.

Alongside the promise of the ‘£250 to adopt a pylon scheme’ to ease the create of a greater grid network, clean energy projects, including wind and solar power, will jump to the front of the queue for grid connections.

The present ‘first come, first served’ process will be replaced by a ‘first ready, first connected’ system that prioritises clean power projects for quicker connections and decisions for onshore and offshore wind, solar power, electricity grids, hydrogen, carbon capture and nuclear power stations will be fast-tracked.

Deputy Prime Minister and Housing Secretary Angela Rayner said: “Time and again ‘blockers’ have been allowed to halt progress at every turn which has weakened our energy security and left our country exposed to soaring energy bills for ‘working people’, families and businesses. This cannot and will not continue under my watch.”

New measures will speed up the approval process for nationally significant infrastructure projects by making consultation less burdensome (and curtail legal challenges), strengthening guidance to expert bodies and local authorities about their role in the process, and updating National Policy Statements at least every five years to reflect government priorities for infrastructure delivery.

The measures should enable the Government’s target to make planning decisions on at least 150 major infrastructure projects, including wind, solar, and hydrogen, in this Parliament.

A series of targeted reforms to accelerate growth will be brought forward in the Bill. These include:

• People living within up to 500 metres of new pylons will get electricity bill discounts of up to £2,500 over 10 years to ensure those hosting critical grid infrastructure benefit from supporting the government’s mission to clean power by the end of this decade.
• Instructing Ofgem to deliver a ‘cap and floor’ scheme to unlock billions of pounds of investment in long duration electricity storage (LDES) to store renewable power and deliver the first major projects in four decades.
• Replacing street works licences with permits to accelerate the rollout of electric vehicle chargepoints and make it easier, cheaper, and faster to install on public roads and streets.
• Changes to the outdated planning rules for new clean electricity infrastructure in Scotland, such as onshore wind farms and pylons, cutting excessive and costly delays to the process while ensuring local voices are heard in applications.
• An extension to the generator commissioning period (GCC) from 18 to 27 months to reduce the number of offshore wind farms requiring exemptions when applying for licences to connect to onshore cables and substations.
• Further changes will also be confirmed to the excessive rules around attempts to block major infrastructure through the courts with more unarguable cases thrown out, so nuclear plants and wind farms can be approved and built faster. This is on top of streamlining environment assessments to save developers time and money while boosting nature recovery and wildlife.

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