Government to remove red tape for renewable generation

The Government is moving ahead with plans that will make it easier to get wind farms and solar consented.

This morning, Environment Minister David Parker and Energy Minister Megan Woods opened consultation on a new set of rules that Parker thinks will make it easier for generators to consent renewables on land they might currently struggle to get consent for. Decisions on the consultation are due by the end of the year.

The announcement is part of a series of climate-related policy slated for Thursday - the Government will also announce the recipients of funding from its industry decarbonisation fund, GIDI.

Parker said the current rules meant wind and solar in particular faced unacceptable barriers to getting a consent.

“Current national direction for renewable electricity infrastructure was developed before emissions reduction targets were incorporated into law, and can no longer support the required rate of development,” Parker said.

Describing the flaws in the rules, Parker said that currently, where there is a conflict “in places with visual amenity, with landscapes of outstanding significance, you can’t do it [get the required consent] unless there’s no practicable alternative with wind and solar”.

“There’s almost always a practicable alternative,” Parker said.

“The no practicable alternative test has … made it too difficult to get consent for new generation,” he said.

The National Policy Statements (NPS) would also make it easier to renew existing generation consents. Renewing existing consents can add time and cost for generators. For existing wind farms, renewing consents should be easier provided the consent is not for generation greater than 10 per cent of the original consent.

Parker said some councils currently treated renewing consents as if it were an application for a new consent.

The policy will make changes to two National Policy Statements - one on Renewable Electricity Generation (NPS-REG), and one on Electricity Transmission (NPS-ET).

It also makes changes to the National Environmental Standards for Electricity Transmission Activities (NES-ETA) and creates new National Environmental Standards for Renewable Electricity Generation (NES-REG).

All of these are regulations issued under the Resource Management Act that set out national-level directives on what can be consented and how. NPSs have been used in recent times to open up far more land in our cities for townhouses and apartment buildings - and these rules work in a similar way, only they set out rules for renewable generation instead of townhouses.

The rules will become part of the new resource management regime which will soon replace the Resource Management Act.

Parker said that the current rules around renewable generation had fallen out of date, following the landmark King Salmon decision of 2014 that decided “specific national direction and specific rules and plans overrule generalities”.

That decision meant current consenting rules around generation were out of date and new, specific national directives would be needed.

Environment Minister David Parker said the changes would aid decarbonisation. Photo / Mark Mitchell

Parker said new rules were needed if New Zealand were to consent enough generation to decarbonise the economy.

“The estimates are that by 2035, we need between 50 and 70 per cent more renewable electricity generation than we have now,” Parker said.

The Government has been working on an NPS-REG for some time, but it rose to the top of the agenda last month when National also promised to introduce a renewable generation NPS if it wins the 2023 election.

National’s policy would make consenting renewables like wind, solar and geothermal a controlled activity under the RMA, which, according to National, would “require councils to update their plans to make consents for these generation types near-automatic”.

Labour’s rules would be similar.

Asked about wind generation, Parker said it should “either be a controlled activity or a discretionary activity”.

“Controlled activities are generally allowed on certain conditions, and restricted discretionary activities are activities where the issues that can be considered in the consent are restricted to certain categories that are specified in the plan,” Parker said.

Parker noted that the policy would not necessarily make consenting renewable generation quicker, because the Covid-era “fast-track” process, which will survive in the new resource management regime, had already cut consenting times for renewables.

However, the rules would mean renewable generation would be easier to build in areas where it may previously have been denied a consent.

One looming question is whether consenting more generation will lead to more generation actually being built.

Generation is often consented but not constructed.

Parker said there “may be some market issues” as to why generation was consented but not constructed.

He said making it easier to consent generation may go some way to resolving this problem.

“The report notes that the price of electricity is currently higher than the long-run marginal cost of new generation. The report makes the point that one of the ways that you address those competition constraints, if there are competition constraints, is making it easy for competitors to consent what should be consented in order for them to compete those prices down,” Parker said.