One of the country’s largest battery storage facilities could be built on farmland near a Kent village under newly submitted plans.
Greenfield Energy Developments Ltd says its Battery Energy Storage System (BESS) site near Brabourne Lees would hold enough energy to power hundreds of thousands of homes.
The farmland where the Battery Energy Storage System (BESS) could be installed. Picture: Greenfield Energy Developments Ltd
Aardvark EM Ltd put in the planning application on behalf of Greenfield to Ashford Borough Council (ABC) in July.
BESS are networks of batteries, usually stored in shipping containers, which are often used to store energy created from renewable sources like solar and wind farms.
They allow renewable energy to be stored and deployed into the grid when needed, rather than wasted.
The proposed site is about the size of 14 football pitches, which bosses say would make it one of the largest such facilities in the country.
The land at Parsonage Farm, just off The Street, is ranked as grade 3b farmland – “not the best and most versatile”, according to the applicants.
The proposed site of the BESS
“The Battery Energy Storage System (BESS) is designed to capture energy and use it at a later pre-determined date,” Aardvark EM Ltd’s application reads.
“These systems complement intermittent sources of energy such as wind, tidal and solar power in an attempt to balance energy production and consumption and are essential to enable a national energy network that relies heavily on renewable energy.
“The proposal is for a 45-year temporary permission and at the end of this period the development will be decommissioned and the site returned to agricultural use.”
Forty Acre Wood also sits near the proposed site for the facility.
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Providing 300 megawatts (MW) of storage, the ‘Parsonage BESS’ could “meet the average electricity needs of (about) 690,000 homes for two hours,” documents say.
If approved, construction is expected to take six to nine months.
The firm proposes to build the site from 8am to 6pm every weekday, from 8am to 1.30pm on Saturdays, and not at all on Sundays or bank holidays.