Question to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy:

To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, what safeguards are in place to ensure that grants from his Department are not given to renewable energy projects which have been constructed or are being operated without the required planning permission.

The Department’s main support schemes for renewable energy projects are based on providing revenue support based on generated output.

The current main support schemes for renewable electricity projects are the Contracts for Difference and the Feed-in Tariff schemes.

The Contracts for Difference scheme requires applicants to demonstrate that they hold the applicable planning consents when applying for support. In addition, it is a contractual obligation for generators to continue to hold the required planning consents for the duration of the support.

Under the Feed-in Tariff scheme, the scheme’s administrator has powers to withdraw, suspend or alter an installation’s accreditation in certain scenarios, including when it has received notice from a relevant public authority that the construction or operation of the installation is in breach of any provision of legislation or of any licence or consent granted for the installation.

Installations that are or were funded under the domestic RHI, Renewable Heat Premium Payment, and certain installations under the Feed-in Tariff schemes; are unlikely to require planning permission due to their scale.

The Government intends that all new Non-Domestic Renewable Heat Incentive (RHI) applicants have all necessary planning permissions in place before they are supported by the scheme. The Government has recently laid regulations in parliament to introduce this requirement.