The Helios Renewable Energy Project Order 2025 (SI 2025/1372) was made on 3 December 2025 and came into force on 29 December 2025. It grants development consent under the Planning Act 2008 for a nationally significant infrastructure project in North Yorkshire. Enso Green Holdings D Limited is named as the undertaker and is authorised to construct, operate and maintain a ground‑mounted solar generating station with associated battery energy storage and grid connection.
The authorised development is defined through numbered works. Work No. 1 comprises the solar photovoltaic array, Work No. 2 the battery energy storage system, and Work No. 3 the on‑site substation. Work Nos. 4, 4A and 5 provide underground cabling between the array, the battery system and the substation, while Work No. 6 delivers the connection bay within National Grid Electricity Transmission’s Drax 132kV substation, with Work No. 6A providing access. Temporary compounds, new and improved accesses including a trenchless rail crossing, and green infrastructure and permissive paths are authorised under Works 7 to 9 and associated development.
The undertaker is expressly authorised to use and operate the generating station and to maintain the authorised development. The Order’s benefit is reserved to Enso Green Holdings D Limited but may be transferred or leased with the Secretary of State’s consent, with carve‑outs where consent is not required for certain licensed electricity undertakings and for specified transfers to Northern Powergrid (Yorkshire) plc and National Grid Electricity Transmission plc for defined connection works.
Construction must begin within five years of the Order coming into force, setting a latest start date of 29 December 2030. Compulsory acquisition powers are time‑limited to five years from the date the Order was made, expiring on 3 December 2030 for serving notices to treat or executing general vesting declarations. Phasing is permitted and the local planning authority must be notified of final commissioning for each phase. Decommissioning must commence no later than 40 years after final commissioning of the last phase of Work No. 1, supported by decommissioning management and traffic plans, and with decommissioning security confirmed by year 15 of operation.
The Order confers powers to acquire land, new rights and to impose restrictive covenants where required for the scheme, including subsoil‑only acquisition. Private rights can be extinguished or suspended where inconsistent with the authorised development, and easements may be overridden on use or occupation, with compensation determined under the Land Compensation and Compulsory Purchase Acts. Temporary possession is available for construction and for maintenance within a five‑year ‘maintenance period’ from first export by a phase, but houses and occupied buildings are excluded. Before exercising key acquisition and possession powers, the undertaker must have an approved guarantee or alternative security in place to meet compensation liabilities.
Street works powers allow breaking up or opening streets, relocating apparatus and altering layouts permanently or temporarily, with duties to restore and with modifications to the balance of New Roads and Street Works Act controls. Public rights of way within the Order limits may be temporarily closed, altered or diverted during construction or maintenance with continued pedestrian access to premises where otherwise severed. The undertaker may also make temporary traffic regulation provisions for construction and decommissioning, subject to police consultation, traffic authority consent, four weeks’ written notice and local publicity and signage.
The Order provides for drainage connections to watercourses, public sewers and drains with the relevant owner’s consent, and sets stand‑off distances from main rivers unless the Environment Agency consents. A flood management strategy is required for the battery storage and substation works, including a flood defence bund designed to the 2080s climate change epoch and level‑for‑level and volume‑for‑volume floodplain compensation to avoid increasing flood risk elsewhere. Environmental permitting provisions are disapplied for carrying on flood risk activity in connection with construction, but this sits alongside detailed protective provisions for drainage authorities and the Environment Agency.
The development is governed by an outline suite of environmental plans to be firmed up at each phase, including construction, operational and decommissioning environmental management plans and soil resource management plans. A landscape and ecological management plan must be approved with Natural England and deliver at least ten per cent biodiversity net gain using the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs’ Statutory Metric (July 2025), with ongoing habitat management and monitoring, including measures for ground‑nesting birds. Landscaping is subject to replacement planting for five years and the Order enables necessary works to trees and hedgerows, including under tree preservation orders, with compensation for damage and with highway consents where within the publicly maintainable highway.
Work No. 2 cannot commence until a Battery Safety Management Plan is approved, following consultation with North Yorkshire Fire and Rescue Service and the Environment Agency, covering construction, operation, decommissioning and battery transport. A Glint and Glare Mitigation Strategy is required in consultation with Burn Gliding Club and must be shared with the club at the point of submission. Foundation and trenchless installation methods are subject to risk assessments to protect principal and secondary aquifers and any Source Protection Zone inner areas.
Before operation of Works 1 to 3, an operational noise assessment based on the final plant layout must demonstrate compliance with fixed rating‑level limits of 40 dB LAr for any fifteen‑minute period at night and 50 dB LAr for any one‑hour period by day, measured one metre free‑field external to façades, applying BS 4142:2014+A1:2019. Where substantiated complaints arise, further assessment and, if necessary, additional mitigation must be implemented to an agreed timetable. An Operational Environmental Management Plan must also address nuisance management and traffic associated with operations.
Extensive protective provisions bind interactions with utility and transport operators. For National Gas Transmission, National Grid Electricity Transmission and Northern Powergrid, the Order secures plan approval regimes, minimum clearances that typically extend to fifteen metres from apparatus, pre‑commencement submission on LinesearchbeforeUdig portals, and requirements for acceptable third‑party liability insurance of £50 million and acceptable security instruments before working near strategic assets. Network Rail’s consent is required for any works that could affect railway property, followed by an Asset Protection Agreement, engineer approval of plans, and cost indemnities for any protective or consequential works.
Requirement discharge follows an eight‑week determination period with reasons required for refusals or conditions. In most cases, failure to determine results in deemed approval; however, where the submitted matter would give rise to materially new or different environmental effects from those assessed, or would alter the conclusions of the Secretary of State’s habitats regulations assessment, non‑determination results in deemed refusal. A bespoke written representations appeal route to the Secretary of State is available, with a quick timetable and an ability to award costs.
Landowners within the Order land should note the five‑year window to exercise compulsory acquisition, the potential for subsoil‑only acquisition, and the availability of compensation for extinguished rights, temporary possession and protective works to buildings. The local planning authority is tasked with approving detailed design, environmental plans, the phasing scheme and key topic strategies including biodiversity net gain, flood and noise, and must monitor notices of final commissioning. Principal contractors should programme around temporary traffic and rights of way controls, battery safety and fire design, and the utility and rail approvals that can add critical path dependencies.
Certified copies of the plans, the book of reference and the outline control documents must be submitted to and certified by the Secretary of State; the Order records that inspection will be available at the undertaker’s registered office. With legal powers now in force from 29 December 2025, early activity is likely to focus on phasing agreement, detailed design approvals and utility interface consents ahead of any enabling works.