Objecting to a battery energy storage scheme

Objecting to battery storage planning applications works best on four grounds: fire safety management and emergency access, tonal noise from inverters and cooling plant, the water supply available for firefighting and the containment of contaminated firewater, and the adequacy of decommissioning and restoration. Standalone electricity storage in England is decided by the local planning authority rather than through the nationally significant infrastructure route, so a large scheme beside a village is a council application and the consultation period is the moment to act.

The site will be described in the application as a compound of containers. What matters is how it behaves on the worst day.

What the installation involves

A grid-scale battery site is a fenced compound holding rows of containerised battery units, each with its own cooling system, together with inverters and transformers, a high voltage substation, cable routes to the grid connection point, an internal access track, security fencing, lighting columns and closed circuit television. Permission is normally sought for a fixed period of several decades with removal afterwards.

Two features drive most of the issues. The units run continuously, so plant noise is a permanent condition rather than an intermittent one. And the energy density of a battery compound creates a fire scenario that is different in kind from other industrial uses, which is why the fire service response is central to the assessment.

Fire safety consultation

Lithium-ion cells can enter thermal runaway, producing a fire that is hard to extinguish, that can reignite, and that releases a plume. The planning system does not regulate battery chemistry or cell design, and it does regulate siting, layout, separation distances, access for appliances and the water available to fight a fire.

Consultation with the fire and rescue service has become standard practice on these applications, and the government has taken steps to formalise the fire service role, so check whether your fire and rescue authority is a statutory consultee at the time you write. Either way, ask the case officer directly whether the fire and rescue service has been consulted and request to see the response.

The questions worth putting in an objection are specific: what separation distance is proposed between container rows and to the site boundary, what the appliance access route and turning provision are, whether a hardstanding is provided for appliances, whether the layout allows a burning unit to be isolated, and whether a battery safety management plan and an emergency response plan are offered for approval by condition.

Noise from inverters and cooling

This is the ground that most often produces a condition and sometimes a refusal. Inverters and transformers produce a steady hum with a strong tonal character, and cooling fans cycle on at ambient temperatures that vary through the year and the day.

Assessment follows the rating method in BS 4142:2014+A1:2019, which compares the rating level with the background sound level and applies a character correction for tonality and for intermittency. A tonal hum attracts a penalty, and that penalty is where applicants and objectors disagree. Read the acoustic report for four things: where the background measurements were taken and whether they represent the quietest night-time periods, whether the measurement positions correspond to the nearest dwellings including upper floor windows, whether cooling fans were modelled at full duty rather than at an average, and whether the character correction for tonality has been applied at all.

Where the report is thin, ask for a reassessment rather than arguing about decibels. A Noise Impact Assessment that fails to measure a representative background on a quiet rural night is the weakest part of most of these applications.

Landscape and screening

Containers stand around the height of a single storey building, the transformers and substation are taller, and the compound is surrounded by security fencing with lighting and cameras. In open countryside that reads as an industrial site.

An objection should name the receptors, give the viewing distance and describe what the screening actually does in winter. New hedge planting on a bund takes years to perform and the compound is visible throughout that time. Where the applicant has produced a Landscape and Visual Impact Assessment, check whether the viewpoints include the nearest dwellings and the public footpath rather than only distant panoramas, and whether winter views are shown.

Lighting is worth a separate paragraph. Security lighting on a rural site changes the night-time character for a wide area, and a lighting scheme with cowled luminaires, low mounting heights, warm colour temperature and motion activation rather than dusk-to-dawn operation is a reasonable thing to request by condition.

Access during construction and maintenance

Construction brings abnormal indivisible loads for transformers, deliveries of containers on low loaders, and concrete for bases. On a single track lane with soft verges that is a real impact for several months.

Ask for a construction traffic management plan secured by condition, covering haul routes, hours, wheel washing, a banksman at the junction, verge protection and a pre-condition survey of the lane with a commitment to make good. Operational traffic is light by comparison, and maintenance visits and battery replacement cycles should still be described rather than left blank.

Water supply for firefighting

This is the ground objectors most often miss, and it is one of the most effective. A battery fire can need a sustained water supply over many hours, for cooling adjacent units as much as for extinguishing.

Rural sites frequently have no mains hydrant within a useful distance. Ask what the proposed water source is, what volume is available, whether an on-site tank or pond is proposed and how it is maintained, and what provision is made to contain contaminated firewater so that it does not reach a ditch, a watercourse or a groundwater source protection zone. Containment usually means bunding, sealed drainage and an interceptor, and it should be shown on a drawing rather than promised in a paragraph. The Environment Agency has an interest where a watercourse or aquifer could be affected, so ask whether it has been consulted.

Conditions and decommissioning

Read the draft conditions and say what you want added. Useful requests include a battery safety management plan and emergency response plan approved before the site is energised, noise limits expressed as a rating level at identified facades with a programme of verification once operational, a lighting scheme, a firewater containment scheme, a landscape and ecological management plan, and a decommissioning and restoration scheme with a mechanism for securing it.

Conditions are only as good as their enforcement, and our note on what breach of condition notices achieve explains what happens when an operator ignores one. Schemes also change during determination, sometimes substantially, and whether neighbours are reconsulted on amended plans is worth knowing before you rely on the drawings you first saw. When the decision arrives, our guide to reading a decision notice as a neighbour sets out how to work out what has actually been permitted.

Write to the case officer within the consultation period, quote the application reference, head each ground separately with the relevant local plan policy, and attach photographs with positions marked. Ask to be told of amendments and of the committee date.

This is general guidance, not legal advice; check the position with your local planning authority or a qualified professional before relying on it.