Planning for new energy infrastructure: revisions to National Policy Statements

The energy National Policy Statements (NPS) set out the government’s policy for the delivery of energy infrastructure and provide the legal framework for planning decisions. They were first designated and published in 2011.

A review of the NPS was announced in the 2020 Energy white paper: Powering our net zero future. This review was to ensure the NPSs were brought up to date to reflect the policies set out in the white paper.

We held a public consultation on the revised NPSs EN1 to EN5 in 2021, and have published a government response. We have strengthened the process for delivering major new energy infrastructure in England and Wales, reinforcing the country’s national priorities regarding energy security, reducing costs, and delivering on net zero, while creating new green jobs and industries for the UK.

Covering renewables, carbon capture and hydrogen, oil and gas pipelines and electricity networks, the updates are expected to speed up the planning process so that low-carbon generation can be brought forward at the right time and in the right places, whilst protecting and enhancing the environment on land and sea and ensuring local views are taken into account.

This consultation is more focused and seeks views on:

• clarifying that offshore wind is now a critical national priority, including the related onshore and offshore network infrastructure
• to deliver the 50GW of offshore wind including 5GW of floating wind, we need to cut the process time by over half. The government therefore announced it was introducing the offshore wind environmental improvement package to help accelerate deployment of offshore wind, whilst protecting and enhancing the marine environment
• strengthening the electricity networks NPS to include more detail on the role of strategic planning of networks, which considers the network as a whole, rather than just individual transmission projects
• updating the civil and military aviation and defence interests to reflect the status of energy developments, including offshore wind, and how impacts to civil and military aviation, meteorological radars and other types of defence interests should be managed