Planning Guidance on Renewable Energy

Published in 2004, Planning Policy Statement 22 (PPS22) sets out the Government's policies for renewable energy, which planning authorities should follow when preparing local development documents and when taking planning decisions.

The wording of PPS22 encourages local planning authorities and regional planning bodies to accommodate and promote, where technically viable, renewable energy developments (eg wind farms, etc) and place requirements on building developments to provide a proportion of the site-wide energy from renewable sources.

Requirements for New Developments

With regard to new building developments, paragraph 8 of PPS22 specifically states:

8. Local planning authorities may include policies in local development documents that require a percentage of the energy to be used in new residential, commercial or industrial developments to come from on-site renewable energy developments. Such policies:

(i) should ensure that requirement to generate on-site renewable energy is only applied to developments where the installation of renewable energy generation equipment is viable given the type of development proposed, its location, and design;

(ii) should not be framed in such a way as to place an undue burden on developers, for example, by specifying that all energy to be used in a development should come from on-site renewable generation.

The “Merton rule”

Following the publication of Planning Policy Statement 22, London Borough of Merton was the first to formalise the government’s renewable energy targets, setting a target for the use of onsite renewable energy to reduce annual CO2 emissions for all new major developments in the borough by 10%.

The first project to comply with this target – ten light industrial units – was completed in June 2005 at Willow Lane, Mitcham, using micro turbines and solar PV to meet the requirement.

Croydon were quick to follow Merton’s lead, and their first project designed to reach a ‘10% target’ was completed in July 2005.

North Devon has chosen to demand 15% CO2 reduction from renewables and Kirklees Council have proposed that by 2011, 30% of energy consumption in every one of its new buildings is from renewable sources.

This is a trend that has drawn increasing interest from local authorities across the UK, with over 75 councils already drawing up policies.