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The majority of Britain’s onshore renewable energy projects are failing to progress beyond the planning stage, according to analysis that highlights the challenges the country still faces in meeting its clean energy targets.
Sixty-three percent of the approximately 4,000 applications for wind, solar and battery projects submitted between 2018 and 2023 were rejected, abandoned or withdrawn, or their planning permission expired, according to energy consultancy Cornwall Insight.
A further 18 percent were sent back for revision, leaving only a fifth of the projects either awaiting a planning decision or ready for construction.
Both the Conservative and Labour parties have promised planning reforms ahead of the July 4 general election, with the Tories promising to reduce the usual time it takes to approve 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 show that these targets have not yet been fully met. This is largely due to the slow pace at which renewable energy projects are being implemented.”
The findings, seen by the Financial Times, come as the UK is under pressure to rapidly increase renewable energy capacity to meet its legally binding target of reducing carbon emissions to net zero by 2050 and decarbonising the electricity grid long before then.
The low success rate of projects is partly due to an increase in initiative applications, according to researchers at Cornwall Insight, as developers submit multiple plans in the expectation that not all of them will be successful.
Project developers complain that the planning system does not have enough resources to handle the increasing number of applications. Long waiting times for connection to the electricity grid could delay the approval process of the projects.
Nathan Bennett of trade group RenewableUK added: “There is a resource problem across the UK, a lack of people able to process the permits in a timely manner.”
The analysis, which covers England, Scotland and Wales, showed a strong annual increase in planning applications for renewable projects in recent years, with 66 percent more applications submitted in 2023 than in 2022.
At the regional level, 37 percent of battery projects for which planning permission had been requested were awaiting a decision or were already ready for construction in the northwest, compared to 19 percent in the southeast. For solar projects in the southwest, the figure was 68 percent.
Labour, which has a lead of around 20 percentage 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 system by then. The Conservatives want to decarbonise the electricity system by 2035.
Labour has promised to “make major projects faster and cheaper by cutting red tape and employing 300 planning officers. More than 3,000 of them left the profession between 2010 and 2020.”
The Conservatives have also promised to reform the “outdated EU bureaucracy” and put an end to “frivolous legal challenges” to development.
National Grid and other electricity network operators are working to reduce queues for grid connections. National Grid’s electricity network operator said its latest proposals could halve queues. The government declined to comment.
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