Battery Storage (BESS)

As renewable energy generation technologies reached peak efficiency, the focus has moved on to the storage of excess energy when solar and wind energy is not being used.

This excess energy is then called on it in times of peak demand to feed back into the National Grid or onsite plant and machinery. Battery storage technologies are essential in speeding up the replacement of fossil fuels with renewable energy. BESS are due to play an important role between green energy supplies and responding to increased electricity demands.

Battery storage usually involves the positioning of battery units close to the power generation source (wind farm or solar).

The Infrastructure Planning (Electricity Storage Facilities) Order 2020 was introduced to make it easier to construct battery storage for solar and wind farms across the UK by removing ‘barriers’ for storage projects above 50MW in England and 350MW in Wales. This means that these larger schemes can proceed without the need for being approved through the national planning regime, which has enabled the process to be sped up and reduced the planning costs for such schemes.

Our Natural Resources team has been involved in many battery storage projects, ranging from small scale operations to much larger schemes of up to 1.4GW.

We can help with battery storage installations and projects in the following ways:

• Initial legal advice on heads of terms for battery storage projects
• Advice on options and leases for battery storage facilities
• Advice on financing agreements
• Input on planning legislation and any planning issues
• Input on environmental legislation and any environmental issues
• Advice on grid connection issues
• General property advice on land rights, easements, variations and surrenders
• Succession planning and tax advice