Increasing Renewable Energy capacity and promoting greater use of local renewable energy

What's the challenge?

Policies on renewable energy and the need for on-site renewables are coming forward in Core Strategies, but there is still some confusion around their implementation.

What are we doing about it?

The Assembly asked Local Authorites which specific areas were in need of further clarification in a note.

This raised several areas of concern:

• the need for further clarity and guidance on preparing policy for and delivering micro-generation
• the need to clarify the role of the Code for Sustainable Homes
• cumulative effects of wind farm development and the need for a regionally consistent means of assessing these
• the need to share evidence across the region

In response to this the Assembly and Yorkshire Forward have commissioned a Renewable Energy Toolkit to enable Local Authorities to deal with the issue of microgeneration, decentralised and low carbon energy.

A workshop was held on 13th March in Wakefield where Faber Maunsell consultants set out their approach to developing the toolkit. Their presentation is available here. The toolkit will be available by the end of April 2009 and a link will be available from this webpage.

What more needs to be done?

These activities will be ongoing during 2009/10.

Natural England and the Assembly will also explore the sharing of data on opportunities mapping to assist local authorities and delivery bodies.