The list below is a record of advice the Planning Inspectorate has provided in respect of the Planning Act 2008 process.
There is a statutory duty under section 51 of the Planning Act 2008 to record the advice that is given in relation to an application or a potential application and to make this publicly available. Advice we have provided is recorded below together with the name of the person or organisation who asked for the advice and the project it relates to. The privacy of any other personal information will be protected in accordance with our Information Charter which you should view before sending information to the Planning Inspectorate.
Note that after a project page has been created for a particular application, any advice provided that relates to it will also be published under the ‘s51 advice’ tab on the relevant project page.
Advice given between between 1 October 2009 and 14 April 2015 has been archived. View the archived advice.
General
Enquiry
Should any (battery storage) facility be consented at a local level, up to 50MW capacity, then subsequently be extended to a capacity up to 100MW, how would this be dealt with from a consenting perspective? Understanding that we are unlikely to be classified as a generating station, and assuming we were to propose a development of greater than 50MW throughput, I understand a development consent order would be required? In this instance, I assume the necessity/otherwise for an EIA would be agreed with PINS, followed by consenting process of ca. 18 months? I believe an overhead line is subject to EIA, and one equal to or above 2km length, with capacity of equal to or above 132kV is also classified as NSIP. However do these rules apply to undergrounding.
Advice given
We consider that the battery storage facility you have described does not qualify as a Nationally Significant Infrastructure Project (NSIP) under the Planning Act 2008 (PA 2008); and therefore it will not require a development consent order under the PA 2008 to be constructed, operated and extended. However, you will understand that there is no case law yet in this area, so this interpretation has not been tested by the courts and the Planning Inspectorate is not able to provide you with legal advice on which you can rely.
Only above ground electric lines are listed as NSIPs within the PA 2008. Please refer to section 16 of the PA 2008 (as amended) for the threshold at which such a project is considered to be a NSIP. The Planning Inspectorate have accepted underground line projects for examination only when it has formed part of an above ground scheme, or when directed to do so by the Secretary of State using section 35 of PA 2008.
For interest, the PA 2008 consenting process is explained on our website at attachment 1, with the timescales included in the diagram at the foot of the page.
We are not able to advise you on other planning regimes outside of the PA 2008 and therefore we recommend that you discuss this with the relevant local planning authority.
20/10/16 - Please note that the provisional view set out in this advice that the battery storage project in question would not qualify as a NSIP is currently under review.
