Question to the Department for Energy Security & Net Zero:

To ask the Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero, what guidance his Department has issued on the decommissioning of large-scale solar installations at the end of their operational life.

The department has not published any separate guidance on the decommissioning of solar farms.

However, as set out in the Overarching National Policy Statement for Energy (EN-1) and the National Policy Statement for Renewable Energy (EN-3), developers must set out in their planning applications arrangements for decommissioning projects. It is typically a condition of planning consent that the site should be returned to its previous use after decommissioning.