Second battery storage facility approved for Shaftesbury

Dorset Council has agreed the scheme for Tagenergy Development UK Ltd giving the company 12, rather than the normal three years, to start work on the site.

The council say that had there not been a strong case for the public to benefit and with an electric substation already on site, the development might have been refused for its ‘harm’ to the ancient Gillingham Royal Forest landscape.

Neither Shaftesbury Town Council nor Motcombe Parish Council raised objections to the proposal.

Some changes had been made to the layout of the site during the consultation period with equipment likely to generate noise moved from the original location.

This application is for a 1.8 hectare farm site at Hawkers Hill Farm, north of Shaftesbury Road, adjacent to an existing electricity sub-station and the site of another battery storage compound which already has planning consent. Between them the two sites would be able to store 100MW of electricity.

The batteries are used to store energy for the National Grid as a balancing mechanism – saving energy when demand is low and releasing it back to the grid when demand increases. They are seen as a good way of storing energy from renewal generation such as wind and solar farms which are not always able to generate power when most needed.

The latest addition to the site will have 68 battery storage units, each to a maximum of 4m high, housed within individual containers and arranged in pairs. It will also have 34 transformer units, one for each pair of battery storage containers.

The single high voltage compound, up to 8m high, will cover a 53 by 24m secure compound with a control room and switchgear, storage and office space to be placed in the south west corner of the site, the lowest area and furthest away from a public right of way to the north of the site.

The planning consent includes tree planting, new hedgerows, meadow grassland and native scrub which the developers claim will produce a biodiversity gain.

Dorset County Hall

The site is 750m from the Cranborne Chase and West Wiltshire Downs Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty although itself has no protective landscape designations and is shown as ‘open countryside’ in the Dorset Local Plan. It is also around 500m away from the nearest Shaftesbury homes to the south east.

A noise assessment had concluded that with a 3m acoustic barrier in place along the edge of the compound fence the facility’s additional noise would be low or very low against the background noise at the nearby farm building and road, more than meeting the required British Standard.

The company claim that the nearest Shaftesbury and Enmore Green residents should not hear any noise from the site once constructed although parts of it might be seen from some high points.

A Dorset Council planning case officer report said the facility would “provide a significant role in the area’s ability to actually use renewable energy. This is because of the inherent issues with the main sources of renewable energy generation in Dorset – solar PV and wind. Putting it simply, solar PV only generates electricity during daylight hours and wind turbines only do so within certain wind conditions. Micro-energy storage within homes and businesses is part of the answer but so too are the larger infrastructure projects like the development proposed. They enable energy harnessed from renewable sources to be stored so that it responds to demand, thereby increasing the dependency on these renewable sources and helping combat climate change in the process.

“A location is necessary that is near to the existing high voltage cable network on a site able to accommodate the extent of infrastructure required. The location also needs to be away from as many sensitive receptors, including dwellings, as possible due to the noise emissions, as well as for operational safety reasons. A countryside location is therefore necessary.”

The additional timescale, of up to 12 years, has been agreed to secure government funding for the project.

Part of the consent includes a condition that the equipment will all have to be removed from the site and the land restored within six months of it being closed down.