Planning Application for a Battery Storage Facility 

Southwest Environmental Limited can help with your Planning Application for a Battery Storage Facility. Please call to discuss.  

In January 2023 reports emerged that £227 million had been paid out in compensation to wind farm operators in 2022 to switch off when winds were too high, increasing 60% from the year before. This indicates that as more wind power is added to the grid following LURB onshore wind rule changes, and that greater amounts of energy storage will be required.

A Battery Storage Facility is  typically comprised of numerous containerised battery arrays. These take energy from the grid when demand is low:

• In the winter this might be taking excess power generated from wind in the middle of the night.
• In the summer this might be taking excess power from a solar during day.

It is therefore important that as we work towards net zero (and as a side effect - greater energy security) we include for more battery storage facilities.

Southwest Environmental can help with Planning Applications for your Battery Storage Facility. Typically a battery storage facility will include the following components:

• Security Fencing
• Maintenance Tracks
• Shipping Containers for Batteries
• Shipping Containers for Battery Management System
•  Substations (Grid and Site)
• Workshop
• Road Junction
• . . .  a great deal of open space. . . all of the above need to be spaced to various design standards.

Visual Impact

Battery Storage Facilities will not have a large visual impact if sited on level ground. However, is located on hillsides, they may create negative visual impact. Owing to reach of views, and the required earth works.

Surface Water

Addition of maintenance tracks, and multiple shipping containers will increase run-off. It may be required that Soak Away Testing is carried out, or perhaps an attenuation system with discharge to surface water is more appropriate.

Location

A commercial scale battery storage facility, is best sited reasonably close to large sources of power, such as large solar farms, or large wind farms. However, small facilities could be created just about anywhere so long as there is grid capacity to do so.