What assessment has been made of the suitability of Natural Resources Wales’s consenting regime for small scale hydro-energy projects?
Developers need to obtain several approvals, licences and consents before any hydropower scheme is built and operated. Regulatory regimes are in place so that we get the right scheme in the right place and get the best balance between protecting the river environment and renewable energy generation.
Abstraction licences are the main type of licence required to develop a hydropower scheme. Natural Resources Wales (NRW) revised its licensing framework in 2014 to simplify the abstraction licensing process. This benefited small-scale, low risk hydropower schemes most by reducing the amount of information needed to support a licence application.
NRW has regularly engaged on regulatory matters with the hydropower industry and other interested parties, including those representing land owners, environmental Non-Governmental Organisations and communities, through a stakeholder group that has been in place since 2014.
In April 2021, NRW published revised hydropower guidance for water resources licence applications on its website. The guidance was developed in consultation with members of the stakeholder group. It makes the licence application process and environmental design requirements clearer to applicants and has been written with a focus specifically on small-scale hydro scheme development with less than 100kW generation capacity.
Our deep dive into renewables, starting 11 October, is an opportunity for our expert group and representatives of interested parties to scrutinise and challenge our policy and regulatory regime, including consenting matters.
It is important to note that since the UK Government closed the Feed in Tariff in 2019, there has been a significant reduction in the number of water resources licence applications for hydropower as there have been very few new schemes.