Planning for Renewable Energy in Worcestershire Research Paper

13. MONITORING ● Planning for Renewable Energy in Worcestershire13. Monitoring and Further Work13.1 Monitoring will be undertaken onan annual basis to see how anyrenewable energy policy is working. It willbe important to understand anyshortcomings or missed targets, and thereasons for these, in further refining thepolicy content.13.2 As and when new national and/orregional energy policy is published, thepolicies within the LDF must seek toreflect this.13.3 As part of the local developmentframework, an Annual Monitoring Report(AMR) is produced. PPS12 31 states atparagraph 4.48 that the AMR shouldreport on, inter-alia:i) whether policies and related targetsor milestones in local developmentdocuments have been met or progress isbeing made towards meeting them or,where they are not being met or not ontrack to being achieved, the reasons why;ii) what impact the policies are havingin respect of national, regional and localpolicy targets and any other targetsidentified in local developmentdocuments.iii) the extent to which any localdevelopment order, where adopted, isachieving its purposes;iv) whether the policies in the localdevelopment document need adjusting orreplacing because they are not workingas intended;13.4 One of the challenges of energypolicy is to ensure it is measurable.Developments which meet the criteria forrenewable energy generation will need tobe recorded, together with the type ofgenerating technology employed, and theamount of energy generated/carbonsaved. This information will allow for adetailed pattern to emerge of theparticular technologies that are mostcommonly used, and may highlight whereany market weaknesses exist. Thisinformation could be used to furtherdevelop the policy, and may lead toincreased targets in the future.13.5 As suggested above, baselinedata, indicators and milestones must bedevised for the purpose of monitoring.This will not necessarily mean a wholehost of new information-gatheringrequirements, as some data that isalready collected can be used for thispurpose. One example of this is themonitoring of domestic CO2 emissionsper capita, which are provided annuallydown to district level.13.6 Monitoring of certain dataconcerning renewables, such as designedcapacity, or number of micro-turbinesinstalled, is likely to require input at thedevelopment control stage. This couldhave resource implications fordevelopment control officers that will needto be considered.v) whether the policies need changingto reflect changes in national or regionalpolicy; andvi) if policies or proposals needchanging, the actions needed to achievethis.31Planning Policy Statement 12: Local DevelopmentFrameworks Office of the Deputy Prime Minister (nowDepartment for Communities and Local Government)200430Technical Research Paper