Brendan Smith (Cavan-Monaghan, Fianna Fail)
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108. To ask the Minister for Housing, Planning, and Local Government if he will amend the Planning and Development Regulations 2001 to include in the classes of development requiring an environmental assessment report for certain installations of stationary battery energy storage systems; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [34562/25]

James Browne (Wexford, Fianna Fail)
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The Planning and Development Regulations 2001 transpose, and include, the classes of development requiring environmental impact assessment, or screening for environmental impact assessment, that are listed in Annex I and Annex II of the Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) Directive. The Directive specifies projects which, by virtue of their nature, size or location, are likely to have significant effects on the environment and therefore should be subject to EIA. The Directive requires that projects listed in Annex I of the Directive be subject to mandatory EIA and provides that Member States may determine whether projects listed in Annex II of the Directive shall be subject to EIA.

Stationary battery storage systems are not a class of project requiring either EIA or screening for EIA under the Directive and therefore are not included as a class of project in the 2001 Regulations. That being said, it is not necessarily the case that stationary battery energy storage projects could never require EIA. Circumstances may arise in which a project may be subject to a requirement for EIA if, for example, one or more aspects of that project comes within the scope of any of the project classes listed in Annex I or Annex II of the Directive. It would therefore be a matter for the planning authority concerned or the Commission to assess all aspects of any planning application for a stationary battery energy storage development the determined whether any aspect of the project comes within the scope of any of the project classes listed in the Directive and transposing legislation, and in that context whether an EIA is required.

It is not intended that the 2001 Regulation be amended at this time to include any additional project classes for EIA purposes, including stationary battery storage systems. Notwithstanding this, my Department is currently in the process of commencing the Planning and Development Act 2024 which will result in all current planning regulations being replaced or amended as appropriate. As part of that commencement exercise, my Department is undertaking a review of all project classes listed in Regulations for EIA purposes in order to set, where appropriate, inclusion or exclusion thresholds for these project classes in compliance with the requirements of the Directive. The need to include stationary battery storage energy storage systems as a class of project subject to EIA can be considered in that context.