Scotland's Section 36 consenting process for solar, explained

Ask a landowner in Kent how solar gets planning permission, and the answer is straightforward. An application goes to the local district or borough council, which decides it under the Town and Country Planning Act 1990. Ask the same question of an estate in Angus or the Borders. The honest answer is “it depends how big the scheme is.”

That’s because above a certain size, Scotland doesn’t use local planning permission for solar at all. Instead, it uses a different Act, a different decision-maker, and a process with no real equivalent south of the border. For any Scottish landowner or estate weighing a ground-mount scheme, knowing which regime applies matters before negotiating a lease term. Knowing what’s currently changing about the rules matters just as much.

The 50MW line: who actually decides

Scotland’s electricity generation consenting sits on two separate legal tracks, split by capacity:

• 50MW or under — the relevant local planning authority decides these, under the Town and Country Planning (Scotland) Act 1997. Scotland has run its own planning Act, separate from England and Wales’s, since devolution. That detail surprises people who assume “UK planning law” is one system.
• Above 50MW — Scottish Ministers decide, under Section 36 of the Electricity Act 1989. The Scottish Government’s Energy Consents Unit (ECU), based in Glasgow, administers the process on their behalf. There is no local-authority decision in the ordinary sense: the local authority is a statutory consultee with a strong voice, not the decision-maker.

That single 50MW figure is the entire fork in the road. Most rooftop and modest farm-diversification schemes never come close to it and sit comfortably in ordinary local planning. But ground-mount solar has grown up fast. A single large array on a well-connected estate can clear 50MW without being an unusual project by today’s market standards.

In fact, Q2 2025 alone saw six Section 36 solar applications between 50 and 99.99MW, and one at 100MW or above. If you’re assembling a scheme of that scale, it’s worth knowing this from the outset. You’re heading into ministerial consenting, not a council planning committee.

Why Section 36 is a genuinely different process

The practical differences go well beyond “who signs the decision.” A handful of features mark Section 36 out as its own regime:

• Deemed planning permission. A Section 36 consent doesn’t run alongside a separate planning permission. Instead, Scottish Ministers can direct that the same consent also grants deemed planning permission, under the 1997 Act. There’s one decision, not two.
• The local authority is a consultee, not the decision-maker. The council where the scheme sits can submit views and evidence. Historically, an objection from the authority could trigger an automatic public inquiry — a rule the government is reforming in 2026 (see below).
• Environmental Impact Assessment is built into the process, not a bolt-on, for any scheme likely to have significant environmental effects. Most schemes at this scale meet that bar.
• Community consultation is mandatory before you even apply. Distinctively, Scotland requires this regardless of scheme size, not only for Section 36 projects. A developer has to present proposals to the local community before lodging any application.
• Applications go to the ECU directly — via energyconsents.scot, by email, or by post to the Glasgow office — rather than to a planning portal.

None of this is a technicality. It changes the advisers you need, the evidence base you assemble, and the timeline you plan around. It also changes who you’re negotiating with if the scheme runs into local objection.

What the process looks like, stage by stage

Following gov.scot’s good-practice guidance on Section 36 and 37 applications, a Section 36 case broadly runs through:

1. Pre-application — initial engagement with the ECU, the local authority, and statutory consultees (SEPA, NatureScot and others depending on the site), plus the mandatory community consultation.
2. Environmental Impact Assessment — screening and, where required, a full Environmental Statement covering landscape, ecology, hydrology and cumulative effects.
3. Submission — the formal application to the ECU, with supporting technical and environmental documentation.
4. Processing and consultation — the ECU circulates the application to the local authority and other consultees for comment.
5. Public Local Inquiry — held where unresolved objections warrant it (the government is also reforming this stage — see below).
6. Decision — Scottish Ministers decide, including whether to grant deemed planning permission alongside consent.

There’s no fixed statutory clock on the whole journey, unlike a routine local-authority planning application. A scheme with a contested public inquiry can run considerably longer than one that clears consultation cleanly. That’s exactly why early, honest engagement with the local authority and community matters more here than in a standard planning application.

Reform is already under way — and it isn’t finished

Two things are moving at once. A scheme timed for 2026–2027 needs to track both, rather than assume today’s rules are fixed.

The Planning and Infrastructure Act 2025 received Royal Assent on 18 December 2025. It amends the Section 36/37 process itself, and most changes took effect roughly two months after Royal Assent. The headline items, per Brodies’ summary of the reforms:

• The judicial-review challenge window for onshore electricity consents shortens from three months to six weeks. That brings it into line with offshore consenting.
• A local authority objection no longer automatically triggers a Public Local Inquiry. Instead, a Scottish Government reporter now decides what process is proportionate.
• Ministers gain a regulation-making power to set mandatory pre-application requirements (information, screening, fees). The detailed regulations, though, were still pending as this reform bedded in.

Separately, the 50MW threshold itself is under review. On 30 December 2025 the Scottish Government opened a consultation on raising the 50MW threshold. The change would push more onshore schemes — including solar — down into local-authority planning rather than Section 36.

That consultation closed on 27 March 2026. The change is likely to progress through 2026. At the time of writing, no one has confirmed a revised figure, so 50MW remains the operative threshold.

That said, any Scottish scheme sized or timed around the Section 36 line should check the current position. Ask the ECU or a specialist adviser before assuming the historic figure still applies by the time you lodge an application.

How this compares with England and Wales

	England & Wales	Scotland
Governing planning Act	Town and Country Planning Act 1990	Town and Country Planning (Scotland) Act 1997
Large-scale route	Nationally Significant Infrastructure Projects (NSIPs) — above 100MW in England (raised from 50MW by the Infrastructure Planning (Onshore Wind and Solar Generation) Order 2025, in force 31 December 2025)	Section 36, Electricity Act 1989 — above 50MW
Decision-maker (large schemes)	Secretary of State, via the Planning Inspectorate	Scottish Ministers, via the Energy Consents Unit
Local authority’s role (large schemes)	Statutory consultee	Statutory consultee
Deemed planning permission	Not automatic in the same way	Can be directed alongside Section 36 consent
Community consultation	Required for NSIPs	Required for every scheme, regardless of size
Recent/pending threshold changes	Threshold already raised 50MW→100MW (in force 31 December 2025)	50MW threshold under consultation, not yet changed; judicial review and inquiry reforms already enacted

The broad shape sends smaller schemes to local planning and larger ones to a national-level process. That will look familiar to anyone who has taken a scheme through England’s Nationally Significant Infrastructure Projects regime. However, the Act, the department, the deemed-permission mechanics, and the blanket community-consultation rule are genuinely Scottish. Assuming an England-based rule of thumb carries over often leads people to underestimate a Scottish scheme’s timeline.

What this means for a Scottish estate weighing solar

For most farm-building rooftop schemes and smaller diversification projects, none of this changes anything. You’re in ordinary local planning. In fact, Scotland’s separate removal of the rooftop permitted-development size cap for non-domestic buildings has made that route even simpler.

The larger ground-mount schemes are different — Scotland’s landholding pattern of substantial estates makes them more common here than in England. That’s where the Section 36 question needs answering early. The question isn’t “is this viable” in isolation. It’s “which regime will decide it, on what timeline, with which stakeholders at the table.”

That question, alongside grid capacity, Agricultural Land Classification, and land-lease economics, shapes any Scottish ground-mount case. An independent feasibility study needs to establish all of this before anyone signs a lease or issues a tender.

Sources:

• Electricity Act 1989, Section 36 — legislation.gov.uk
• gov.scot — Good practice guidance: applications under sections 36 and 37, Electricity Act 1989
• gov.scot — Energy consents: how to apply
• gov.scot — Onshore electricity generation: consultation on increasing the Electricity Act threshold
• Scottish Government — Energy Consents Unit portal
• Brodies LLP — Consenting electricity infrastructure in Scotland: Planning and Infrastructure Act reforms