3.24 In 2019, B&NES Council declared a Climate Emergency, setting the ambition to lead the district to carbon neutrality by 2030. The Climate Emergency Strategy sets out the four strategic priorities:
- Decarbonise buildings
- Decarbonise transport
- Increase renewable energy generation
- Decarbonise the council’s own operations.
Planning should support our climate change ambitions by facilitating:
- retrofit of existing buildings to improve energy efficiency
- net zero new-build developments
- increased renewable energy generation and storage
3.25 Action to mitigate climate change cannot be taken in isolation, but also considering how the district will adapt to the changing climate. Appropriate retrofit of heritage assets and increased renewable energy generation must be designed for the future climate, ensuring that their use continues to be sustainable. Improved resilience in the district can be achieved through an increase in nature-based solutions and green infrastructure, also supporting a range of further outcomes including health and well-being and active mobility.
3.26 As part of the Climate and Ecological Emergency Strategy we're developing an Energy Strategy that builds on studies identifying enabling greater renewable energy capacity, through the community energy approach as the best delivery model. Aside from the Core Strategy targets of 110MW electricity and 165MW heating, there is a widely used target of 300MW installed capacity across the authority area that was identified to be of the scale needed to help the area become carbon neutral. However, varying external factors relating to decarbonisation of the grid mean that this figure is likely to vary with time.
3.27 The Council is part of a successful bid for Innovate UK funding for the West of England area that will enable the development of a Local Area Energy Plan in collaboration with the District Network Operator. This will identify detailed energy needs in terms of demand and infrastructure relating to the energy grids. This will help us to further refine our approach to planning and identifying priority areas for delivery.
3.28 The constraints relating to grid connections (in particular those above 1mw) remain a consideration in the short term for planning, However, changes in the way reserved capacity queues are managed means that larger connections may be possible in shorter timescales, and should not therefore be seen as a barrier to large renewable installations.
3.29 There is an opportunity to utilise the emerging microgrid model for improving the carbon neutral new build policy adopted as part of the Local Plan Partial Update (LPPU). This model could further reduce the need for offsetting as part of the policy and enable greater carbon reduction. Given the greater electricity generation and consumption on new-build properties, due to electrification of heat and transport, consideration should be given to stipulating that new builds need to have a 3-phase electricity supply.
At the end of this chapter there is an opportunity to comment on the key needs we have identified