Agreement Reached On Fast Tracking Consenting Processes For Renewable Energy

Political agreement was yesterday reached by the European Council on the proposed emergency regulation to fast track consenting processes for renewable energy.

The regulation is to be formally adopted at the next extraordinary energy Council meeting next month. Once adopted, it will have direct effect in each Member State.

The main question, of course, is how the regulation will be implemented in practice.

A number of amendments were made to the proposed regulation by the Council yesterday including:

• A three month deadline for permitting of solar, up from one month;
• A one month deadline for heat pumps
• The possibility for Member States to apply the faster permitting rules to ongoing permitting requests;