A large number of UK renewable projects fail to get past the planning stage

Unlock Editor’s Digest for free

FT editor Roula Khalaf picks her favorite stories in this week’s newsletter.

Most of Britain’s offshore renewable energy projects are failing to get past the planning stage, according to an analysis which highlights the challenges the country still faces in meeting its clean energy targets.

According to energy consultancy Cornwall Insight, 63 per cent of the roughly 4,000 applications submitted for wind, solar and battery projects between 2018 and 2023 were refused, cancelled, withdrawn or had planning permission expired.

A further 18 per cent have been sent back for review, leaving only a fifth of projects either awaiting planning decisions or ready for construction.

Both the Conservatives and Labor have promised planning reforms ahead of the July 4 general election, with the Conservatives pledging to cut the typical time it takes to sign off on major infrastructure projects from four years to one.

“The UK has set ambitious targets to increase renewable energy capacity,” said Lucy Dolton, asset and infrastructure manager at Cornwall Insight. “These figures reveal a substantial shortfall in meeting these targets, largely due to the slow pace of progress in the roll-out of renewable energy projects.”

The findings, shared with the Financial Times, come as the UK is under pressure to rapidly increase renewable energy capacity to meet its legally binding target of net-zero carbon emissions by 2050 and to decarbonise the electricity grid long before then.

The low rate of successful projects, according to Cornwall Insight researchers, partly reflects an increase in speculative applications, as developers submit multiple plans with the expectation that not all will succeed.

Developers complain that the planning system is under-resourced to cope with the growing number of applications, and lengthy waits for grid connections can slow projects through the approval process.

Nathan Bennett, from trade group RenewableUK, added: “There is a resource problem across the UK, a lack of people able to process consents in a timely manner.”

The analysis, which covers England, Scotland and Wales, showed a sharp annual increase in planning applications for renewable energy projects in recent years, with 66 per cent more applications in 2023 than in 2022.

Regionally, 37 percent of battery projects that applied for planning permission in the Northwest were either awaiting a decision or ready for construction, compared with 19 percent in the Southeast. For solar projects in the Southwest, it was 68 percent.

Labour, which has a lead of around 20 points in opinion polls, wants to double onshore wind capacity, triple solar capacity and quadruple offshore wind capacity by 2030 to meet its interim target of decarbonising the electricity grid by then. The Conservatives want to decarbonize the electricity system by 2035.

Labor promised to make “major projects faster and cheaper by cutting red tape and to hire 300 planning officers. Between 2010 and 2020, more than 3,000 people left the profession.

The Conservatives also pledged to reform the EU’s “outdated bureaucracy” and “end unnecessary legal challenges” to development.

National Grid and other power grid owners are working to try to speed up the grid connection queue. Electricity grid operator National Grid said its latest proposals could halve the size of queues. The government declined to comment.