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Advice given between between 1 October 2009 and 14 April 2015 has been archived.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
Can solar farm applications in England and Scotland fall under the remit of the Planning Act 2008.
Advice given
Section 15 of the Planning Act 2008 as amended (the PA 2008) details the threshold at which a generating station project is defined as a Nationally Significant Infrastructure Project (NSIP). For onshore generating stations proposed within England or Wales, projects with a capacity of over 50MW will be considered as NSIPs. Onshore generating stations proposed within Scotland do not fall under the remit of the PA 2008.
Unfortunately, the term ‘capacity’ is not defined within the PA 2008. Two definitions are provided in relation to renewable energy production and electricity generation licensing within the Renewables Obligation Order 2009 (SI 2009/785), as follows:
‘Total Installed Capacity’ in relation to a generating station, means the maximum capacity at which the station could be operated for a sustained period without causing damage to it (assuming the source of power used by it to generate electricity was available to it without interruption);
‘Declared Net Capacity’ in relation to a generating station, means the maximum capacity at which the station could be operated for a sustained period without causing damage to it (assuming the source of power used by it to generate electricity was available to it without interruption) less the amount of electricity that is consumed by the plant;
In the absence of any statutory definition or applicable case law, we consider that the term ‘capacity’ within section 15 of the PA 2008 refers to the ‘Total Installed Capacity’ as defined above. Please note however that the Planning Inspectorate is not able to provide legal advice on which applicants and others can rely, therefore applicants will need to ensure they have a robust argument to support their understanding of the capacity of their proposals.
The Planning Inspectorate offers a free service for applicants at the pre-application stage of the nationally significant infrastructure planning process. Please see the Prospectus found at the following link for further details: attachment 1
The Planning Inspectorate has published a series of advice notes which explain the process, including information on how to get involved. These are available at attachment 2
