Across Europe, new data centre projects face delays of up to a decade awaiting grid access, but the UK's new Planning and Infrastructure Bill promises to fast-track renewable energy applications, slashing wait times by up to seven years.
The government said these reforms would “accelerate growth, create thousands of jobs, and add billions to the UK economy”.
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Angela Rayner, the UK Deputy Prime Minister and Housing Secretary, said: “Through our landmark Planning and Infrastructure Bill we’re taking bold action to fix the broken planning system, paving the way for us to get Britain building more vital infrastructure so our children and grandchildren can grow up in a more energy secure world.”
The Planning and Infrastructure Bill includes measures to speed up the approval process for nationally significant infrastructure projects, which includes data centres.
Energy regulator Ofgem will be instructed to introduce a ‘cap and floor’ scheme, which sets a limit on returns or revenues that project developers can earn, preventing excessive profits at the expense of consumers while also establishing a guaranteed minimum level of returns
Energy infrastructure rules in Scotland are also being ripped up to enable onshore wind farms and pylons to get permissions faster.
“The only way to get Britain off dependency on fossil fuel markets controlled by dictators is with clean homegrown power that we control,” said Energy Secretary Ed Miliband. “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.”
The bill’s introduction comes just a week after industry experts at Datacloud’s inaugural Energy & ESG event called for grid modernisation to be accelerated to support new digital infrastructure projects.
The bill could also help unlock new full-fibre gigabit broadband projects. Till Sommer, head of policy at the Internet Service Providers' Association (ISPA UK), said the legislation would “facilitate the connectivity gains that will power the UK for decades to come”.
“The Bill is ambitious, especially when it comes to more traditional projects like power networks,” Sommer said. “We’d love to see the same action and ambition for broadband infrastructure. Now is the time to be bold and brave, turbocharging the existing permissive and competitive planning regime via flexi permits and greater cross-governmental support.
“Futureproofing communications networks in this way will deliver significant economic and social benefits, and provide the foundation for the Government’s digital transformation agenda.”
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