Written question WQ94755
- Asked by
- Luke FletcherPlaid
- To be answered by
- Cabinet Secretary for Economy, Energy and Planning
- Tabled
- Due
- Answered
- Time to answer
- 2 days
Question
Further to WQ94551, will the Cabinet Secretary confirm the Welsh Government's involvement in the process of approving the project, due to the total energy produced within the proposal at the site being below 350MW?
Answer
Answered by Cabinet Secretary for Economy, Energy and Planning
My officials have had a number of high-level meetings with Last Energy’s Chief Executive Officer and their UK Development Director over the past 6 months as their plans have evolved.
Llynfi is proposed to have a total generating capacity of 80MW. Energy generating projects with a generating capacity of between 10MW and 350MW, (and all onshore wind projects above 10MW) are currently consented by the Welsh Ministers through the Developments of National Significance (DNS) process. The DNS process will be replaced by the Infrastructure Consent (IC) process under the Infrastructure (Wales) Act 2024. This will raise the consenting threshold for energy projects up to 50MW.
DNS and the future IC applications are submitted to the Planning and Environment Decisions Wales (PEDW). PEDW will manage the process on behalf of Welsh Ministers, who will make the final decision on the application.
No information has yet been provided by the company on the detail of their technology. Should the project proceed, the assessment of the how waste is to be treated will be undertaken by the Office of Nuclear Regulation and Natural Resources Wales.