Onshore and offshore wind projects account for half the 32 energy projects that the UK Infrastructure Planning Commission will examine over the next few years, it said Tuesday. The IPC was created in 2008 by the then Labour government to speed up major infrastructure project decision-making.
“Proposals for energy generation, particularly renewable energy, currently dominate our programme,” it said in a newsletter on its website, adding that it is considering 43 infrastructure projects in total.
The IPC said it expects to examine “nine offshore and seven onshore wind farms, four biomass plants, two waste combustion plants, four nuclear power stations and one gas fired power station.”
“Other proposed energy projects include four high-voltage electricity transmission lines and a gas pipeline,” it added. On June 29, the UK government said the IPC will be scrapped in 2011 and integrated into the country’s Department for Communities and Local Government.
In the meantime, the Department of Energy and Climate Change has the final word on all major UK infrastructure projects, with the IPC acting as an advisor to the government.
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Source: platts, July 15, 2010;