This section provides for the situation where both a marine licence and a consent under Article 39 of the Electricity (Northern Ireland) Order 1992 (in relation to offshore generating stations) are required.
In such cases the Department of Enterprise, Trade and Investment is responsible for determining the consent under Article 39 of the Electricity (Northern Ireland) Order 1992 and, in conjunction with the Department, may issue a notice to the applicant stating that both the application for an Article 39 consent and the application for a marine licence will be subject to the same administrative procedure. This procedure will ensure that the two related applications for the two different permissions are dealt with in parallel and at the same time, rather than in sequence.
In cases where only one of the applications has been received, that application must not be dealt with until the other application is received. When both applications have been received the process that the applications will go through is that which is to be determined by the Department in any order made under subsection (6). That order may disapply any provision of the marine licensing process to the marine licence application, apply the process specified in the Electricity (Northern Ireland) Order 1992 to that application instead and modify that process in its application to the marine licence application.