The national planning authority has rejected just four green energy project applications in the last 18 months in a turnaround since being accused by a High Court judge of being a “significant roadblock” to achieving climate goals.
An Coimisiún Pleanála (ACP) has approved 48 wind and solar farms since January last year, including 16 that had been refused permission by local authorities.
It dismissed an appeal concerning a wind farm proposed for Shanovogh, Co Clare, and refused permission for three projects: 12 wind turbines in Ballycar, Co Clare; a 10-turbine wind farm in Coumnagappul, Co Waterford; and a single turbine in Cullion, Co Donegal. The Ballycar and Coumnagappul refusals are currently the subject of High Court judicial review challenges.
The commission, then titled An Bord Pleanála, began publishing its decision record on renewable energy projects in January 2025, just days after High Court judge Richard Humphreys said that the planning authority was in effect “sabotaging” the State’s compliance with climate commitments by rejecting green energy projects that breached local development plans. This and several other lines were later removed from his judgment following a request from An Bord Pleanála.
The amended ruling in the case, which was brought by wind farm developer Coolglass, maintained that Government policy and legally binding climate targets supported granting permission for a wind farm in Co Laois, but the planning authority favoured local planning guidance and landscape sensitivities. Humphreys said the board had adopted an approach that “severely undermines” national and European Union climate goals.
The judge said section 15(1) of the Climate Action and Low Carbon Development Act allowed the board to permit environmental projects even if they breached local planning policies. Here the board failed to act in line with climate objectives, he held.
In its January 2025 update, An Bord Pleanála said it had granted planning permission to about two-thirds of the 69 wind and solar applications it determined in the previous two years. Most of the 21 refusals were for multiple reasons, but seven were for a single reason related to local planning policies, it said.
Without referring to the court’s judgment, the board said it acted in an “impartial and open manner to ensure that infrastructure projects respect the principles of sustainable development, including protection of the environment”.
Coolglass Wind Farm’s case later came before the Supreme Court, which last February overturned several of the High Court findings against the planning authority.
Judges in the State’s top court, however, upheld the central finding that the planning authority failed in its obligations, particularly under climate laws, to consider whether permission for renewable energy projects should be granted notwithstanding a breach of local planning policy.
Their ruling made it clear that climate obligations were “real, effective and, if necessary, enforceable”, creating a “legal standard which must be complied with by a relevant body”.
In response to queries, An Coimisiun Pleanála said the Supreme Court decision had provided “valuable clarification” on how section 15 of the Climate Action and Low Carbon Development Act should be interpreted.
The commission’s current decision-making in renewable energy is “very much informed” by the Coolglass ruling, which is “of great assistance” in interpreting local planning policies, a spokesman for the planning authority said.
He noted wind and solar decisions were regularly challenged via judicial review High Court cases. He said the commission had successfully defended all recent challenges to grants for solar projects and 17 permissions for onshore wind development.
