Dozens of clean energy projects, including wind and solar power, will jump to the front of the queue for grid connections, as the government looks to improve the planning process.   

The Planning and Infrastructure Bill, formally introduced to Parliament today, is laying the groundwork for a new approach to prioritise new transmission infrastructure which will unlock growth with £200bn of investment and protect households from the rollercoaster of fossil fuel markets.  

The government says ready-to-go projects from solar farms to new factories currently face lengthy connection waits of up to 10 years due to an out of date connections process, creating uncertainty for communities and businesses, costing the taxpayer millions of pounds and weakening the country’s energy security.  

It says the flawed ‘first come, first served’ process is preventing viable infrastructure from being able to connect ahead of speculative projects clogging up the queue, and will be replaced by a ‘first ready, first connected’ system that prioritises the right homegrown clean power projects for quicker connections to build an energy system that can bring down bills for good.  

Decisions for onshore and offshore wind, solar power, electricity grids, hydrogen, carbon capture and nuclear power stations will be fast-tracked to accelerate growth.

Energy secretary, Ed Miliband, said: “The only way to get Britain off dependency on fossil fuel markets controlled by dictators is with clean homegrown power that we control.

“By taking on a broken planning system that puts the brakes on growth, this government is driving forward with our clean energy superpower mission and Plan for change

“Every turbine, every solar panel, every cable we connect helps protect families and paves the way for a new era of clean energy for our country.”

New measures will speed up the approval process for nationally significant infrastructure projects by making consultation less burdensome, strengthening guidance to expert bodies and local authorities about their role in the process, and updating National Policy Statements at least every five years to reflect government priorities for infrastructure delivery.  

This will support the government’s pledge to make planning decisions on at least 150 major infrastructure projects, including wind, solar, and hydrogen, in this Parliament – almost tripling the 57 decisions made in the previous Parliament and more than 130 made since 2011.  

The government has already agreed 10 so far, including several energy projects such as six solar farms, amounting to nearly three gigawatts of new clean energy for the country.  

A series of targeted reforms to accelerate growth and speed up the government’s Clean Power 2030 Action Plan will be brought forward in the Planning and Infrastructure Bill. These include:  

• People living within up to 500 metres of new pylons will get electricity bill discounts of up to £2,500 over 10 years to ensure those hosting critical grid infrastructure benefit from supporting the government’s mission to clean power by the end of this decade.
• Instructing Ofgem to deliver a ‘cap and floor’ scheme to unlock billions of pounds of investment in long duration electricity storage (LDES) to store renewable power and deliver the first major projects in four decades.
• Replacing street works licences with permits to accelerate the rollout of electric vehicle chargepoints and make it easier, cheaper, and faster to install on public roads and streets.
• Changes to the outdated planning rules for new clean electricity infrastructure in Scotland, such as onshore wind farms and pylons, cutting excessive and costly delays to the process while ensuring local voices are heard in applications.
• An extension to the generator commissioning period (GCC) from 18 to 27 months to reduce the number of offshore wind farms requiring exemptions when applying for licences to connect to onshore cables and substations.

Further changes will also be confirmed to the excessive rules around attempts to block major infrastructure through the courts with more unarguable cases thrown out, so nuclear plants and wind farms can be approved and built faster. This is on top of streamlining environment assessments to save developers time and money while boosting nature recovery and wildlife.