The UK Government’s new National Planning Policy Framework (NPPF) was published last week, setting out the Government’s policies for planning and decision-making on development proposals in England.

With a whole section of the policy dedicated to ‘Securing clean energy and water’, this was welcome news from a network capacity perspective. It sets out its priorities for the benefits of renewables and low-carbon energy sources, while effectively forcing local planning to actively account for local network capacity and grid connection requirements.

Put simply, it means planning and grid capacity are being talked about at the same time; not as an afterthought but early before deciding where and when development happens.

This is a step change in the country’s planning process and particularly important as it applies to large developments such as EV charging deployments and freight depots. But arguably more significant right now is the mention of data centers, which are also named in the policy framework. 

The UK hosts around 500 data centers, but if you consider that there are nearly 100 new projects in the pipeline, this early planning around grid capacity becomes even more important as data center building continues to grow. 

But the NPPF could go even further. Asking the capacity question earlier in the planning process only gets you halfway. The real opportunity is including flexibility in the early planning too, because the amount of new grid capacity a site actually needs isn't fixed. It depends on how intelligently that demand can be shaped once it's connected.

That's exactly where standards like OpenADR come in – giving grid operators and developers a common way to build flexible demand into a connection from day one, rather than sizing every EVSE operator or data center for its absolute peak.

Better visibility and early planning into constraints are a good start. It’s one we support in a market where we have strong backing through our agreement with the Energy Networks Association (ENA) and National Energy System Operator (NESO) for interoperable flexibility. But pairing it with flexibility from the outset is how we complete the system.

You can find more details of the NPPF here or read the full policy document here.

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