Why planning has to get up to speed on renewable projects

Logjams in Ireland’s planning system combined with grid-connection costs are standing in the way of the development of renewable energy projects at the pace that’s needed to meet our 2030 climate targets.

Rise in planning refusals for wind farms

In wind energy, the approval rating for wind farm projects that went to An Bord Pleanála has dropped from 70% to 30% in the past two years, according to Justin Moran, Director of External Affairs at Wind Energy Ireland.

“We have seen a huge increase in the quantity of wind farms being refused planning permission. Two 60MW wind farms got through in Q3, and we are hoping to get a few more approved by the end of the year. But the volume of projects that need to come through the system is a cup of water compared to the Atlantic in terms of what we need to achieve,” he says.

Justin Moran
Director of External Affairs, Wind Energy Ireland

“Along with gaps in resources and expertise at An Bord Pleanála, national and local policy on renewable energy development is increasingly in conflict. The National Planning Framework (NPF) is a good medium to long-term solution to this, but it won’t make a blind bit of difference to the 2030 climate targets because it can’t happen fast enough.”

Off-putting planning system for developers

According to Tony McGuinness, Head of Origination, Market Entry and Storage at renewable developer Aer Soléir, the NPF should speed up processing times for big-picture planning applications, but it has become much harder to get all the permits needed for local delivery, which normally come at the end of a project.

“I think it is a very unsupportive system to developers and Ireland is probably the hardest market in Europe for planning. In Ireland, I would say as a developer, you’re in opposition to every single State body. By contrast, in the UK, for example, when you apply for planning, you’re allocated a planning agent from the local authority focused on how to get things done,” he says.

“All across the continent, you can normally expropriate land through an agreed legal process. But here, the only choice is getting the local roads authority to agree to works along public roads — which is getting nearly impossible to do — or you’re left with a battle with private landowners.”

The Government needs to look at
some sort of tiered grant structure to
encourage more solar panels on roofs.

Ireland losing renewable investment

Chris Collins, Country President Ireland at Schneider Electric, is not seeing a sense of urgency from the Government on planning reform. “The question now is not whether we are going to lose investors; it is how much have we lost? And when can we stop the bleeding? Customers we were dealing with five years ago would have had Ireland as their first, second or third choice for renewable energy projects. Now, we’re not even on the list for their future investments,” he says.

“Planning and infrastructure are two sides of the same coin. It’s not a budget problem to build out the grid, but you still have the planning iteration to get through and then actually running the wires and putting the substations in the ground. Even if we got planning permission tomorrow to build all the offshore wind farms, we have been talking about for 15 years, we don’t have the wires to get the energy where it needs to go.”

Untapped potential for rooftop solar

Katie Popplestone, Sales and Marketing Manager at Midsummer Renewables, highlights the massive untapped potential that exists for rooftop solar. The Irish Solar Energy Association (ISEA) estimates that only 5% of residential roofs have solar panels, with the potential for 1.3 million homes to have installations.

“Although massive solar farm projects that must go through planning are required, we just need to look at how many naked roofs there are; they’re everywhere. The Government needs to look at some sort of tiered grant structure to encourage more solar panels on roofs,” says Popplestone. “There are still a lot of other limitations to actually implementing this at scale. The idea of on-site solar is catching on among businesses, but overall there needs to be a better incentive to improve adoption generally.”

Grid and planning delays hinder solar

Conall Bolger, Chief Executive Officer of the ISEA, says misalignment in terms of planning and the grid is impacting the time it takes for solar farm projects to get up and running. “Take a solar farm that has gotten through planning, has an offer to connect to the system and gone through a Renewable Energy Support Scheme (RESS) auction, so in a position to get finance. At that stage, they often learn about additional requirements such as a change to how they connect necessitating a change to their planning permission.

Conall Bolger
Chief Executive Officer, Irish Solar Energy Association

“This means going back to the planning process again. Surviving that, it is in a position to get the project financed but then runs up against deadlines on the RESS contract,” he says. “What unifies all of these processes is that they are all administered and managed by the State. It is about being more radical in tackling the coordination challenge.”