The United Kingdom Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (BEIS) has outlined plans to amend the nationwide planning rules for co-located storage projects with a capacity larger than 50 MW. Composite power generation and storage projects (excluding onshore wind) where the capacity of both the storage and power plant are less than 50 MW individually but over 50 MW in combination would fall under the local planning regime and would not be required to go through the Nationally Significant Infrastructure Projects (NSIP) process. Standalone storage projects with more than 50 MW on capacity would remain required to go through the NSIP process. This would facilitate deployment of grid-scale storage projects in the future.
The proposition is part of the 2017 Smart Systems and Flexibility Plan to promote smarter and more flexible energy systems by removing barriers to smart technologies such as electricity storage, enabling smarter homes and businesses, and making markets work for flexibility.