Reform UK’s local-election victories in May 2025 could put 6 gigawatts (GW) of new clean-energy capacity at risk, according to Carbon Brief analysis.
The hard-right populist party took control of 10 English councils in last month’s local elections and has said it will use “every lever” to block new wind, solar and battery projects.
Those 10 areas have jurisdiction over 5,076 megawatts (MW) of battery schemes, 786MW of solar and 56MW of wind, according to Carbon Brief’s analysis of industry data.
While Reform has also pledged to “ban” battery systems, councils do not have direct control over these projects, which are determined by local planning authorities.
It could still influence local planning decisions, planning experts tell Carbon Brief.
However, this is likely to prove a “nuisance” with “limited effect” in terms of the government’s targets for clean power overall, according to one planning lawyer.
Opposing net-zero
Reform UK’s leaders are openly sceptical about the causes and consequences of human-caused climate change. The party is also explicitly opposed to the UK’s net-zero target, which, at a global level, is the only way to stop warming from getting worse, according to scientists.
The party has pledged to “scrap net-zero” if it ever takes power at the national level, falsely asserting that this would free up billions of pounds of public money for tax cuts and welfare programmes.
(Its assertions ignore the fact that the large majority of the investments needed to reach net-zero are expected to come from the private sector, rather than government funds. They also do not account for the economic benefits of lower fossil fuel use or avoided climate impacts. The party’s misleading claims have been widely dismissed by economists.)
Reform UK has also said it would “ban” battery storage projects and impose new taxes on solar and wind power installations.
As it stands, the party only has five MPs in parliament. However, its success in the recent English local elections and favourable polling numbers have raised its profile in UK politics and given it new powers in some areas.
To assess the potential impact of these new powers on clean-energy expansion, Carbon Brief looked at data for 10 local councils where Reform UK won overall control, shown in the map below, including Durham, Kent and Derbyshire, as well as two mayoralties.
(The analysis does not include Warwickshire, where no party gained a majority in the elections. However, a subsequent vote saw the party’s local head selected to lead the county council. He has announced plans to “dumb down” net-zero initiatives in the county.)
Following the election, Richard Tice, Reform MP and deputy leader, said the party would use “every lever” available to block new renewable-energy projects in the areas it now controls.
At the heart of this commitment is Lincolnshire, the location of Tice’s own constituency, Boston and Skegness, which now also has a Reform-run council and a Reform mayor.
The rural county is the site of several large-scale solar project proposals, which have faced a strong backlash from some local people.
This mirrors a wider trend of opposition to solar and battery projects by campaigners, who say they are concerned about, what they allege, could be the impact on the local countryside and farmers.
However, such views are not the norm. Survey data shows overwhelming public support for solar and other renewables across the UK, even if projects are built in people’s local areas.
Analysis by thinktank the Energy and Climate Intelligence Unit also noted that by rejecting net-zero-related projects, Reform UK could threaten thousands of jobs and millions of pounds of investment in areas such as Lincolnshire.
Capacity at risk
In total, some 5,862MW of solar and storage capacity is currently seeking local planning authority planning approval across the 10 Reform-controlled councils, Carbon Brief’s analysis shows. This is broken down by council area in the figure below.
This includes a series of smaller proposed solar farms, each with a capacity of less than 50MW, meaning they need local planning approval.
(The threshold for local planning approval, currently 50MW, is set to rise to 100MW in 2026.)
Solar farms above this capacity threshold go through the “nationally significant infrastructure planning” (NSIP) process. These large-scale projects are then assessed by energy secretary Ed Miliband, who can grant or deny a development consent order.
Local planning authorities (LPAs) are guided by the national planning policy framework (NPPF), rather than the politics of the county councils under which they sit.
However, the Reform-controlled councils overseeing these authorities will likely attempt to assert influence over approvals.
Gareth Phillips, partner at Pinsent Masons law firm and specialist in renewable energy planning and project development, tells Carbon Brief that, while county councils are not responsible for determining planning applications, they do have influence over the outcome.
He tells Carbon Brief:
“[Councils are an] important consultee, required to respond to statutory consultation…which gives the opportunity for county-council members to influence the planning decision…In the case of Reform, it is possible that its elected members may seek to rally support for opposing planning applications, perhaps leading campaigns against the proposals. The risk here is that it may give the perception of credence to opposing views.”
Phillips says that in addition to influencing planning authority decisions, county councils could issue new strategic planning guidelines for their areas. He explains:
“It will be for the LPA to decide what, if any, weight to place on the county council’s views, when determining the planning application. Over time, it’s possible that Reform-led county councils may propose so-called ‘core strategies’, i.e. planning documents setting out strategic level requirements and policy applicable to development proposals in its jurisdiction. Similarly, that policy would be a matter for the LPA to consider and decide how much weight to apply when determining planning applications.”
This risk is mitigated to some extent by the core strategies within the NPPF and the “national policy statements” for energy, he notes.
As such, while local planning authorities will be required to determine the approval or rejection of an application on the basis of wider policy considerations, Reform-led councils could still affect the decision. “Reform-led county councils would have a voice and opportunity to influence planning decisions,” says Philips.
Stand-alone battery energy-storage projects do not have a capacity cap for being processed by local planning authorities, following changes to the regulations in 2020.
However, a number of storage projects that are co-located with solar will be judged under the NSIP process, meaning councils will be unable to block their construction.
Solar strife
Carbon Brief’s analysis looks at projects that have submitted planning permission requests in the 10 Reform-controlled counties, using Solar Energy UK’s SolarPulse database for solar and storage.
The analysis also covers relevant onshore wind projects, based on data from the government’s renewable energy planning database.
(Solar Energy UK notes that the SolarPulse database does not include solar projects with a capacity of less than 5MW.)
The analysis shows that there is 1,866MW of proposed solar capacity awaiting planning permission in Lincolnshire, by far the largest pipeline, as shown in the chart below.
The majority of this capacity is subject to national-level approval as it is above the NSIP threshold. Nevertheless, the county still has the most solar-power projects awaiting permission from the local planning authority, some 166MW.
(A key reason Lincolnshire dominates this picture for solar power development is due to grid capacity. The county was home to several large-scale coal-fired power plants, such as West Burton, which have shuttered in recent years as part of the UK’s transition away from coal. This means there is more capacity for new generators to connect to the grid in the county than in many others, where the system is currently more constrained.)
Overall, the bulk of the proposed capacity at risk is battery storage, which has seen a surge in applications and installations in recent years.
There was 5,013MW of battery storage capacity in operation as of December 2025 and another 5,115MW under construction, according to trade association RenewableUK. It says an additional 40,223MW had planning approval and a further 77,354MW was under development.
Impact of rejection
Overall, even if local planning authorities under the 10 Reform UK-run councils were to reject all of the nearly 6GW of proposed solar and storage capacity in their areas, it would have a limited impact on the UK’s wider solar, storage and wind targets.
If built, the 786MW of proposed solar would generate 757 gigawatt hours (GWh) of electricity. On average, a household in the UK uses 2,700 kilowatt hours (kWh) of electricity each year, meaning these solar farms would be able to power the equivalent of around 280,000 homes – some 1% of the national total.
If all of this proposed solar were rejected and the electricity were generated from gas-fired power stations instead, it would result in an extra 0.3m tonnes of carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions per year. (This is equivalent to less than a tenth of 1% of the UK’s annual total.)
In total, the potential 757GWh of solar power could help displace around £60m of gas per year, based on wholesale prices in 2025 to date.
Private investment could also be impacted. Each 1MW of solar would attract around £1m of investment, meaning the 786MW of capacity would bring roughly £786m into the Reform-led counties. This would have an impact on local supply chains and “community benefit” schemes.
Similarly, battery schemes with four hours of storage capacity also require around £1m of investment per megawatt. This means another £5bn of investment – some 5,076MW of capacity – could be at risk under Reform-led councils.
The total investment at risk for solar and storage is, therefore, close to £6bn.
While a large amount of potential new solar and storage capacity is being proposed in the Reform-led council areas and some could be put at risk as a result, it is also the case that some of these developments could fail for other reasons.
According to research from consultancy Cornwall Insight in February, the current battery storage “connection queue” is double the grid’s requirement for 2030. This means there are many more projects in the queue to gain access to the electricity network than needed.
The government’s plan for reaching its target of “clean power 2030” sets a guideline of 27GW of storage capacity by the end of this decade, whereas some 61GW of battery projects are seeking a grid connection over the same period.
This means the UK would have enough options to meet its 2030 storage requirements even if some proposed battery projects fail due to Reform-led councils, says Ed Porter, global director of industry for battery analysts Modo Energy. He tells Carbon Brief:
“With more than 50GW of battery projects with planning consent, projects could be targeted in Reform areas, but the UK would still have sufficient options to meet clean-power 2030 targets, subject to the achievable build out rate of storage projects.”
The main outcome of Reform-led refusals would be to block profitable projects that could reduce consumer costs and cut CO2 emissions, Porter adds.
Still, there is no guarantee that all of these projects – and the solar proposals – would have received planning permission if Reform UK had not been elected in the relevant areas.
According to figures from Solar Media Market Research, the local authority refusal rate for proposed solar-power projects rose to almost 25% in 2024, the highest on record. This is up from 15% in 2022 and 20% in 2023.
However, the majority of projects that are refused by local authorities still end up being approved. Over the past five years, some 80% of projects that went to appeal were subsequently approved, according to Solar Media. All 12 of the solar projects that have gone to appeal in 2025 to date have been approved.
Battery energy-storage refusals hit a high of 22% in 2024, according to Solar Media. However, in 2025 so far, this has dropped to 9%.
Connections challenge
Even if Reform UK-led councils are unable to block clean-energy developments outright, the party’s pledge to “fight [developers] every step of the way” could still make the process more challenging.
One key way this could hamper the development of renewable energy technologies is by forcing them to go through the appeals process, extending the time it takes to gain planning permission by as much as a year.
Following changes to the grid connections queue, new connection agreements include strict delivery deadlines for obtaining planning permission.
As such, if a project ends up going to appeal – and is, therefore, delayed – it could risk missing deadlines and having its grid connection agreement terminated.
Additionally, with the capacity limit for NSIPs set to change in December, more projects – solar projects between 50MW and 100MW – will go to local planning authorities for approval. This will increase the number that could be threatened by Reform UK’s influence.
Ultimately, though, there is limited renewable-energy capacity seeking planning permission in Reform-controlled counties, more than enough capacity in planning nationally to meet targets, plus the role of the council in what is – or is not – approved is limited.
Planning lawyer Philips concludes that Reform-led councils are only likely to cause a “nuisance”, with “limited effect”. He says:
“In summary, there is the potential for Reform-led county councils to cause a nuisance for renewable energy projects in the planning process, but this will be limited in effect.
“I’m not concerned about this because of the weight of policy support there is for those projects, which should serve to mitigate the influence Reform could otherwise have.”
The post Analysis: Reform-led councils threaten 6GW of solar and battery schemes across England appeared first on Carbon Brief.
Analysis: Reform-led councils threaten 6GW of solar and battery schemes across England
Drought and heatwaves occurring together – known as “compound” events – have “surged” across the world since the early 2000s, a new study shows.
Compound drought and heat events (CDHEs) can have devastating effects, creating the ideal conditions for intense wildfires, such as Australia’s “Black Summer” of 2019-20 where bushfires burned 24m hectares and killed 33 people.
The research, published in Science Advances, finds that the increase in CDHEs is predominantly being driven by events that start with a heatwave.
The global area affected by such “heatwave-led” compound events has more than doubled between 1980-2001 and 2002-23, the study says.
The rapid increase in these events over the last 23 years cannot be explained solely by global warming, the authors note.
Since the late 1990s, feedbacks between the land and the atmosphere have become stronger, making heatwaves more likely to trigger drought conditions, they explain.
One of the study authors tells Carbon Brief that societies must pay greater attention to compound events, which can “cause severe impacts on ecosystems, agriculture and society”.
Compound events
CDHEs are extreme weather events where drought and heatwave conditions occur simultaneously – or shortly after each other – in the same region.
These events are often triggered by large-scale weather patterns, such as “blocking” highs, which can produce “prolonged” hot and dry conditions, according to the study.
Prof Sang-Wook Yeh is one of the study authors and a professor at the Ewha Womans University in South Korea. He tells Carbon Brief:
“When heatwaves and droughts occur together, the two hazards reinforce each other through land-atmosphere interactions. This amplifies surface heating and soil moisture deficits, making compound events more intense and damaging than single hazards.”
CDHEs can begin with either a heatwave or a drought.
The sequence of these extremes is important, the study says, as they have different drivers and impacts.
For example, in a CDHE where the heatwave was the precursor, increased direct sunshine causes more moisture loss from soils and plants, leading to a drought.
Conversely, in an event where the drought was the precursor, the lack of soil moisture means that less of the sun’s energy goes into evaporation and more goes into warming the Earth’s surface. This produces favourable conditions for heatwaves.
The study shows that the majority of CDHEs globally start out as a drought.
In recent years, there has been increasing focus on these events due to the devastating impact they have on agriculture, ecosystems and public health.
In Russia in the summer of 2010, a compound drought-heatwave event – and the associated wildfires – caused the death of nearly 55,000 people, the study notes.
The record-breaking Pacific north-west “heat dome” in 2021 triggered extreme drought conditions that caused “significant declines” in wheat yields, as well as in barley, canola and fruit production in British Columbia and Alberta, Canada, says the study.
Increasing events
To assess how CDHEs are changing, the researchers use daily reanalysis data to identify droughts and heatwaves events. (Reanalysis data combines past observations with climate models to create a historical climate record.) Then, using an algorithm, they analyse how these events overlap in both time and space.
The study covers the period from 1980 to 2023 and the world’s land surface, excluding polar regions where CDHEs are rare.
The research finds that the area of land affected by CDHEs has “increased substantially” since the early 2000s.
Heatwave-led events have been the main contributor to this increase, the study says, with their spatial extent rising 110% between 1980-2001 and 2002-23, compared to a 59% increase for drought-led events.
The map below shows the global distribution of CDHEs over 1980-2023. The charts show the percentage of the land surface affected by a heatwave-led CDHE (red) or a drought-led CDHE (yellow) in a given year (left) and relative increase in each CDHE type (right).
The study finds that CDHEs have occurred most frequently in northern South America, the southern US, eastern Europe, central Africa and south Asia.
Threshold passed
The authors explain that the increase in heatwave-led CDHEs is related to rising global temperatures, but that this does not tell the whole story.
In the earlier 22-year period of 1980-2001, the study finds that the spatial extent of heatwave-led CDHEs rises by 1.6% per 1C of global temperature rise. For the more-recent period of 2022-23, this increases “nearly eightfold” to 13.1%.
The change suggests that the rapid increase in the heatwave-led CDHEs occurred after the global average temperature “surpasse[d] a certain temperature threshold”, the paper says.
This threshold is an absolute global average temperature of 14.3C, the authors estimate (based on an 11-year average), which the world passed around the year 2000.
Investigating the recent surge in heatwave-leading CDHEs further, the researchers find a “regime shift” in land-atmosphere dynamics “toward a persistently intensified state after the late 1990s”.
In other words, the way that drier soils drive higher surface temperatures, and vice versa, is becoming stronger, resulting in more heatwave-led compound events.
Daily data
The research has some advantages over other previous studies, Yeh says. For instance, the new work uses daily estimations of CDHEs, compared to monthly data used in past research. This is “important for capturing the detailed occurrence” of these events, says Yeh.
He adds that another advantage of their study is that it distinguishes the sequence of droughts and heatwaves, which allows them to “better understand the differences” in the characteristics of CDHEs.
Dr Meryem Tanarhte is a climate scientist at the University Hassan II in Morocco, and Dr Ruth Cerezo Mota is a climatologist and a researcher at the National Autonomous University of Mexico. Both scientists, who were not involved in the study, agree that the daily estimations give a clearer picture of how CDHEs are changing.
Cerezo-Mota adds that another major contribution of the study is its global focus. She tells Carbon Brief that in some regions, such as Mexico and Africa, there is a lack of studies on CDHEs:
“Not because the events do not occur, but perhaps because [these regions] do not have all the data or the expertise to do so.”
However, she notes that the reanalysis data used by the study does have limitations with how it represents rainfall in some parts of the world.
Compound impacts
The study notes that if CDHEs continue to intensify – particularly events where heatwaves are the precursors – they could drive declining crop productivity, increased wildfire frequency and severe public health crises.
These impacts could be “much more rapid and severe as global warming continues”, Yeh tells Carbon Brief.
Tanarhte notes that these events can be forecasted up to 10 days ahead in many regions. Furthermore, she says, the strongest impacts can be prevented “through preparedness and adaptation”, including through “water management for agriculture, heatwave mitigation measures and wildfire mitigation”.
The study recommends reassessing current risk management strategies for these compound events. It also suggests incorporating the sequences of drought and heatwaves into compound event analysis frameworks “to enhance climate risk management”.
Cerezo-Mota says that it is clear that the world needs to be prepared for the increased occurrence of these events. She tells Carbon Brief:
“These [risk assessments and strategies] need to be carried out at the local level to understand the complexities of each region.”
The post Heatwaves driving recent ‘surge’ in compound drought and heat extremes appeared first on Carbon Brief.
Heatwaves driving recent ‘surge’ in compound drought and heat extremes
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