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Renewable Energy: Update on Permit-granting Procedures in Ireland (including Planning Regulations)

The European Union has taken several initiatives to accelerate the roll-out of renewable energy development, key among which is streamlining and expediting permit-granting procedures under the Renewable Energy Directive (“RED III”), at Articles 15b to 17.

25/08/2025

Briefing

The permit-granting procedure

The permit-granting procedure covers all relevant administrative permits to build, repower and operate renewable energy plants, (including those combining different renewable energy sources), heat pumps, and co-located energy storage, (including power and thermal facilities), as well as assets necessary for the connection of such plants, heat pumps and storage to the grid, and to integrate renewable energy into heating and cooling networks, including grid-connection permits and, where required, environmental assessments.

The procedure itself comprises all administrative stages from the acknowledgment of the completeness of the permit application to the notification of the final decision on the outcome of the permit-granting procedure by the relevant competent authority.

Deadlines for the permit-granting procedure and overriding public interest

RED III provides deadlines for the permit-granting procedure. Key examples are that the permit-granting procedure for:

renewable energy projects shall not exceed two years (or three years for offshore projects),
repowering of renewable energy power plants, new installations with an electrical capacity of less than 150 kW and co-located energy storage, as well as the connection of such plants, installations and storage to the grid, shall not exceed 12 months (or two years for offshore projects),
installation of solar energy equipment and co-located energy storage, including building-integrated solar installations, in existing or future artificial structures, shall not exceed three months, provided that the primary aim of such artificial structures is not solar energy production or energy storage,
installation of solar energy equipment with a capacity of 100 kW or less shall not exceed one month, and lack of reply by the competent authorities within the deadline shall result in the permit being considered as granted,
installation of heat pumps below 50 MW shall not exceed one month and, in the case of ground source heat pumps, three months.

There is some scope for limited extension of certain deadlines where duly justified on the grounds of extraordinary circumstances.

RED III also requires designation by 21 February 2026 of “renewables acceleration areas”, where deployment of a specific type or types of renewable energy sources is not expected to have a significant environmental impact, and in respect of which shorter permit-granting timelines apply.

RED III also provides for simplification of processes where environmental assessments are required. For example, in some categories the competent authority must issue an opinion on the scope and level of detail of the information to be included by the project developer in the environmental impact assessment report.

Member States must ensure that, in the permit-granting procedure, the planning, construction and operation of renewable energy plants, their connection to the grid, the related grid itself, and storage assets are presumed as being in the overriding public interest and serving public health and safety when balancing legal interests in individual cases for the purposes of relevant provisions in the Habitats, Birds and Water Framework Directives.

Permit-granting procedures in Ireland

Ireland appears to be taking a staged approach to transposition of RED III requirements.

Grid Connection

Ireland’s grid connection policy, which we considered in our briefing – New Connection Policy for Onshore Generators and Storage – is intended to align the process of applying for grid connection with the timelines in RED III. Some risk of overall coordination of permit-granting procedures appears, however, to be transferred back to the developer.

For example, submission of the application for connection is required “not greater than 15 calendar days following a project’s Planning Application being acknowledged as complete by the relevant planning authority”, with the CRU considering that, if the applicant misses this 15-day window (or decides to wait to obtain full planning permission), the applicant may be “deemed to have opted out of the RED III” timelines. (Note that this requirement is eased somewhat for applicants in the first round of batch processing because the planning regulations described below will not have been in place far enough in advance of the 30 September 2025 deadline: see the CRU’s notice of 25 August 2025, which also addresses the second round of batch processing in 2026.) The applicant has 60 calendar days to accept a grid connection offer, failing which it will lapse, and the applicant cannot accept the offer unless it has received planning permission for the project.

Planning Permission

The Minister for Housing, Local Government and Heritage made the European Union (Planning and Development) (Renewable Energy) Regulations 2025 (the “2025 Regulations”). The 2025 Regulations concern only the regime under the Planning and Development Act 2000 (the “2000 Act”) and the Planning and Development Regulations 2001. This regime will be replaced by a new regime under the Planning and Development Act 2024. Therefore, the RED III requirements will have to be carried across to the new consenting regime, once introduced.

We outline below some of the main amendments to the current regime which have been put in place by the 2025 Regulations.

New sections in the 2000 Act address planning permissions for a range of renewable energy related development. Broadly, and subject in some cases to caveats, new decision timelines are as follows (with time running from the date of acknowledgment of completeness of an application for planning permission):

decisions on applications (whether they are made to a planning authority or directly to An Coimisiún Pleanála) for renewable energy development with a capacity of 150kW or more must be made within 52 weeks. Where a project requires an IROPI consent, the decision must be made within two years;
decisions on applications (whether they are made to a planning authority or directly to An Coimisiún Pleanála) for renewable energy development with a capacity of less than 150kW or repowering development must be made within 30 weeks. Where a project requires an IROPI consent, the decision must be made within one year;
decisions on ground source heat pumps and relevant solar energy development must be made within eight weeks; and
decisions on small-scale solar energy equipment or small-scale non-ground source heat pumps must be made within four weeks.

Applicants for renewable energy development must engage in a mandatory scoping process from 1 October 2025. The Commission cannot subsequently extend the scope and level of detail of information to be included in the environmental impact assessment report following this process.

The 2025 Regulations also reduce requirements under section 172 as regards environmental impact assessments for repowering of certain solar installations, relevant solar energy developments, development to reinforce grid infrastructure, and repowering development. Requirements for screening for environmental impact assessment are reduced for certain grid reinforcement and repowering development.

It is clarified that proposed development that is the planning, construction and operation of a renewable energy plant, any works necessary for the connection of such a plant to the grid, and any related grid or storage assets, is presumed to be in the overriding public interest and serving public health and safety when balancing legal interests in the individual case.

In practical terms, the 2025 Regulations also introduce a new site notice form which must now be used. This is available at the back of the 2025 Regulations and replaces the previous site notice appended to the Planning and Development Regulations 2001.

Contact Points

Member States must set up or designate a contact point. The contact point is obliged to ensure that the RED III deadlines for the permit-granting procedures are met. By 21 November 2025, Member States must also ensure that all permit-granting procedures are carried out in electronic form.

The ethos of the contact point was explained in Recitals to RED II in 2018: Providing guidance to applicants throughout their administrative permit application and granting processes by means of an administrative contact point is intended to reduce complexity for project developers and increase efficiency and transparency. Such guidance is to be provided at an appropriate level of governance, taking into account the specificities of Member States. The single contact points should guide the applicant and facilitate through the entire administrative process so that the applicant is not obliged to contact other administrative bodies in order to complete the permit-granting process, unless the applicant prefers to do so.

In Ireland, the Sustainable Energy Authority of Ireland is designated as the contact point.

Transposition Requirements

The European Commission’s July 2025 infringement package included a reasoned opinion sent to Ireland for failing to fully transpose into national law the provisions of RED III related to the simplification and acceleration of the permit-granting procedure.

Ireland has two months to respond and to take the necessary measures to complete transposition. Otherwise, the Commission may decide to refer a case to the Court of Justice of the EU with a request to impose financial sanctions.