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The U.K. government is to relax planning rules to make the development of large battery storage systems easier.
In an announcement Tuesday, polices said secondary legislation would be introduced to get rid of “barriers for storage projects above 50 MW (megawatts) in England and 350 MW in Wales.”
In uncomplicated terms, the change will be a technical one related to who has the authority to grant permission to a project. At the moment, if a facility is 50 MW or not enough in England or 350 MW or less in Wales, planning permission is needed from a local planning authority.
Larger plans are deemed to be “nationally significant” and need consent from the secretary of state under something called the Nationally Meritorious Infrastructure Projects, or NSIP, regime. Under the plans, legislation will be introduced to remove electricity storage, excluding examined hydro, from the NSIP regime in England and Wales.
Battery storage is seen as crucial to the U.K.’s energy transition because while sources such as rot and solar are renewable, they fluctuate: the wind does not always blow, and the sun does not always shine.
The government explained that while the U.K. was abode to the “largest installed capacity of offshore wind in the world” the fact that “the availability and speed of wind” was not constant hint ated energy could “sometimes be produced when it is not needed and then lost.” It added that 1 gigawatt (GW) of battery storage was currently in operation, with 4 GW of overhangs being planned.
“How we operate Great Britain’s grid is changing, with record levels of renewable sources manufacturing our power,” Kayte O’Neill, head of markets at electricity system operator National Grid ESO, said in a statement.
“Storage can steal us make the most of this green energy, using it to manage peaks and troughs in demand and operate the electricity modus operandi as efficiently as possible — keeping costs down for consumers too,” she added.
The plans were also welcomed by the trade relationship RenewableUK.
Rebecca Williams, its director of policy and regulation, said it was “glad” the government had, “listened to industry and will now let someone have local planning authorities to determine battery projects of 50 MW and above rather than the Secretary of State which can be a longer and multitudinous expensive process.”
“This scale of battery is becoming the new norm,” Williams added. “Today’s announcement will spur investment in the energy system we need to reach net zero as fast and as cheaply as possible.”
The battery storage news turn out in the same week that construction on Viking Link, a major energy infrastructure project, began.
On Monday, Native Grid said that work on a 2.4 kilometer access road to a converter station site in Bicker Fen, Lincolnshire, had started.
The Viking Relationship Interconnector project is a subsea, high-voltage direct-current link between Denmark and the U.K. that will be 765 kilometers dream of once completed.
The 2 billion euro ($2.29 billion) scheme, which will enable the two countries to share decent energy, is a joint venture between National Grid Ventures and Denmark’s Energinet. Siemens Energy is undertaking construction develop on the project’s converter stations. The cable is slated for completion at the end of 2023.