The projects will bring Root-Power’s total number of submitted applications to 1GW
In August our in-house team submitted planning applications for a further 210MW of battery energy storage projects, enough to power over 380,000 homes. The five projects will be located in Reading, Manchester, Lancashire, Rotherham & Rochdale.
These planning applications help us in our mission to establish ourselves as one of the largest owner-operators of energy storage systems in the UK with capabilities to design, build and operate these assets in-house. Its portfolio now exceeds 2GW, with projects ranging from 10MW to 100MW.
Planning applications for the five proposed projects were submitted last month. The largest of the submitted proposals, in Lancashire, will be capable of exporting 60MW for a period of 2 hours once operational. The sites in Reading and Rochdale have an export capacity of 50MW and 30MW respectively, and the sites in Manchester and Rotherham can export 30MW and 40MW respectively. Root-Power’s approach focuses on strategic site finding, securing locations near to a point of connection on the grid network while also avoiding sites with high planning risk.
The Reading site in particular is placed extremely close to the point of connection and has been designed to align with the agricultural character of the surrounding landscape. The Rotherham site has been strategically positioned on a dormant strip of land between a major motorway and a B-class road, the placement of this site therefore mitigating planning risks such as landscape and noise issues.
Together these sites would see around 60% of biodiversity net gain produced, primarily on-site, with the site at Rotherham generating 40% Biodiversity Net Gain alone. In total, these projects will see over £1 million of economic investment into each of their respective Council areas.
Neil Brooks, Managing Director at Root-Power said: “We’re incredibly excited to have submitted five further planning applications over the past month, which will see Root-Power go from strength to strength as we look to grow our portfolio of owned and operated battery energy storage projects across the UK.
“This latest announcement reflects our unwavering commitment to innovation and growth. As we continue to expand, we will be able to drive meaningful change toward a more sustainable future. Our market-leading team of industry experts are looking forward to developing and growing our portfolio throughout the rest of 2024 and into 2025.”
In July 2024 we also appointed five different planning consultancies to process 40 BESS applications, with applications due to be submitted throughout the remainder of 2024.