Submission from the Office of the Planning Regulator (Submission No 426)
Issues / Recommendations / Observations
Chief Executive’s Resp onse & Recommendation
for Planning Authorities on Statutory Plans, Renewable Energy and Climate Change (DoHPCLG, 2017) and the documents referenced in its Specific Planning Policy Requirement: the Government’s ‘White Paper on Energy Policy - Ireland’s Transition to a Low Carbon Future’, as well as the ‘National Renewable Energy Action Plan’, the ‘Strategy for Renewable Energy’ and the ‘National Mitigation Plan’, and any policy revisions in this area. The Climate Action Plan includes provision for revising the SEAI’s Methodology for Local Authority Renewable Energy Strategies (LARES), with input from relevant bodies, to provide a best practice approach to identifying and assessing renewable energy resources in spatial planning at local authority level. Cork City will input into the SEAI’s revised methodology and prepare a LARES for the City in due course, which will include specific targets on renewable energy. This section should also be read in conjunction with Chapter 5 Climate Change and the Environment and Chapter 11 Placemaking and Managing Development in terms of policy guidance on Renewable Energy. Due to the City’s largely urbanised nature, the potential for largescale wind energy development is very limited and therefore generally not open for consideration. However in terms of realising overall national targets on renewable energy and climate change mitigation, there may be further potential for small or microscale wind energy development, which will be supported in appropriate locations. The national Climate Action Plan also states that based on the indicative targets for onshore wind energy and grid-scale solar deployment, the Department of the Environment, Climate and Communications (DECC) will set out a target for the total onshore capacity that should be planned for on a national and regional level. The Development Plan may need to be amended to reflect national renewable energy objectives, and those set out in the regional strategies once they are available. A new Offshore Renewable Energy
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