New Clean Power 2030 and National Planning Policy Framework Announcements

Clean Power 2030 Action Plan

The UK Government has recently announced two major policy developments that may impact the development of clean power in the UK.

On 13 December 2024, the Government unveiled its “Clean Power 2030 Action Plan”, which aims to set out a detailed roadmap for achieving the target of clean power in the UK by 2030.

The Government described its Action Plan as “the most ambitious reforms to the country’s energy system in a generation, to make Britain energy secure, protect households from energy price spikes, reindustrialise the country with thousands of skilled jobs, and tackle the climate crisis”.

The Action Plan builds on the independent expert advice on achieving clean power by 2030 commissioned by the Government from the National Energy System Operator (NESO), which was published earlier in the year. Interestingly, that advice included the assumption that up to 5% of Britain’s energy generation would still be provided by gas power stations by 2030.

The Action Plan highlights the main steps for achieving the 2030 clean power goal. These include:

• reforming the grid connection process and reducing the queue to connect
• upgrading the planning system, unblocking bottlenecks to ensure projects can receive timely decisions, and ensuring the system can prioritise 2030-crtical projects
• a focus on renewable and nuclear project delivery, including possible targeted reforms to the Contracts for Difference regime, leveraging Great British Energy to support local and community-led renewable capacity
• electricity market reform to support clean power generation and networks, including reforming transmission network charging
• a focus on short-duration energy storage and flexibility, including the publication in 2025 of a Low Carbon Flexibility Roadmap to drive clean power flexibility by 2030
• a drive to develop low carbon long-duration flexibility, based on a projected need for 40-50 GW of dispatchable and long-duration flexible capacity in 2030 to support the power system in periods of low renewable output; and
• a strong domestic supply chain and workforce, giving developers greater route-to-market certainty, with the forthcoming Industrial Strategy due to include a sector plan for clean energy industries.

One of the main themes running through the Action Plan is that of “removing the barriers” to achieving clean power by 2030. As Chris Stark, head of Clean Power 2030, says in his Foreword to the Action Plan, “For the first time, we will have eyes on a programme of clean power investment estimated to be around £40 billion per year for the next six years. That visibility allows a more active focus on removing the barriers to its achievement, supporting greater co-ordination of supply chains, with more UK-based production, and ensuring there are trained workers to meet the requirements across the country. This is the real prize.”

The Action Plan is expected to result in a number of legislative changes in order to achieve implementation.

Planning Reform

One of the key policy changes announced by the Government around the same time as the Action Plan took the form of the publication of a revised National Planning Policy Framework (NPPF), announced on 12 December 2024, along with a related paper which set out the Government’s response to its recent consultation on reforms to the NPPF and other changes to the planning system.

Onshore wind and NSIP

As expected, the Government has confirmed that onshore wind should be reintroduced to the Nationally Significant Infrastructure Project (NSIP) planning regime. The Government sees this as creating a “level playing field” for larger scale onshore wind, putting it on the same footing as offshore wind and nuclear, and providing greater certainty to the industry.

The NSIP regime is reserved for large-scale projects, and gives the final decision to the Secretary of State rather than local planning authorities (LPAs), although the NSIP process generally involves greater cost for the developer.

Wind and solar NSIP thresholds

At the same time the Government confirmed that the threshold at which onshore wind projects will be subject to the NSIP regime will be 100 MW, and that the same threshold will apply to solar projects.  Interestingly, the Government’s initial proposal was that 150 MW should be the threshold for solar projects, (up from the current 50 MW), so this represents a change in the Government’s thinking. The Government explained that “we agree with consultation views that a 100 MW threshold would better reflect modern technology and are of such sufficient scale, impact and complexity to be considered as nationally significant”. It is expected that legislation will be brought in during 2025 to implement the changes.

It may be that we will now see more solar projects entering the planning process in the 50 MW to 100 MW scale, when they previously may have found the costs associated with the NSIP route uneconomic for the project.

Direction of travel

At the same time, LPAs will be required to give significant weight to the benefits associated with renewable and low carbon energy generation and a proposed project’s contribution to a net zero future.

These, and other changes to the NPPF and the planning system, are to be welcomed in terms of their general support for renewable energy development. We plan to report further on the new planning policy changes, together with the evolution of the new Clean Power 2030 Action Plan, and what they mean for our clients and the renewable energy sector in the UK.

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