The expert planning team at leading onshore renewable energy developer OnPath Energy has been shortlisted for a prestigious national award.
OnPath has been nominated in the In-House Planning Team of the Year category of the 2024 Royal Town Planning Institute (RTPI) Awards for Planning Excellence, which highlight the positive contribution planning professionals make in the communities in which they work.
Its eight-strong planning team is responsible for managing the development of all aspects of OnPath’s planning applications, from first principles through to completion and commissioning.
The team works with national and local authorities, statutory consultees and local communities on the fine detail of each project, and has consecutively secured planning consent six times for the UK’s tallest wind turbines, with the consent secured to build turbines up to 251m tall at its Lethans Extension Wind Farm in East Ayrshire currently being the highest in the UK.
OnPath is the only renewable energy firm to be shortlisted in this category, which celebrates the achievements of teams working within businesses whose main function is not planning or built environment consultancy, and is competing against a range of household names for the award, including the National Trust, Network Rail, NHS Property Services and ASDA.
The award winner will be named at a gala dinner hosted by the RTPI in London in November.
Headquartered in Houghton-le-Spring, Sunderland and with offices in Hamilton and London, OnPath Energy owns and operates a portfolio of onshore wind farms across Scotland and northern England.
It currently has five consented onshore wind and solar energy schemes across England and Scotland in development, with more than three gigawatts of renewable energy generation and electricity storage projects in its pipeline and more set to follow.
OnPath Energy (formerly Banks Renewables) was acquired last year by the leading global alternative asset manager, Brookfield, which has approximately 34GW of installed renewable energy capacity worldwide and a development pipeline of approximately 200GW of renewable power assets.
Rachel Allum, planning director at OnPath Energy, says: “Our planning team is involved at all stages of the life cycle for a range of complex and large-scale projects, and takes immense pride in the quality of work that it delivers, so it’s exciting for us to have our approach and effectiveness recognised by the RTPI.
“There’s a deep personal commitment from all the members of our planning team to developing and delivering renewable energy projects that have a positive impact on the communities in which they’re located, make a wider positive impact on the environment and contribute to the country’s continuing journey towards achieving its Net Zero ambitions.
“We carry out extensive engagement and research to ensure our project proposals capture the greatest possible value for communities, the local environment and climate change.
“It’s a proven approach which reflects the key role that the planning profession has to play in helping society move towards Net Zero fairly and swiftly, and also ties in closely to OnPath’s long-term goal of becoming the UK’s leading renewable energy developer.
“The new government has committed to the UK becoming a clean energy superpower and our whole team is passionate about making a meaningful contribution toward seeing this ambition achieved.”