Planning consent for Battery Energy Storage System (BESS) facility in Newtownards

The consented development includes a 41MW BESS installation, an associated substation, a transformer compound, a control room and office building, roof-mounted solar panels to sustainably power the aforementioned personal infrastructure, on-site parking, landscaping to integrate the new build into its natural environment, and ancillary development.

BESS infrastructure is an often underappreciated yet essential part of society’s transition away from fossil fuels and toward renewables, as we seek to decarbonise the energy consumption of our homes and businesses. Battery storage allows for the carbon-free electricity generated from intermittent renewable sources such as wind turbines and solar panels, to be stored and released back onto the grid at times of high consumer demand.

This simultaneously enables ETI to orchestrate what is known in the energy sector as Demand Side Management. By conserving surplus electricity generation from renewable sources at times of high productivity and then releasing and trading this onto the wider transmission network at times of high customer demand as above, ETI enables grid operators to procure stored electricity from its storage facilities for distribution to the electricity grid. This means that every megawatt generated by our battery storage assets can be maximised and electricity costs minimised, by avoiding the need to for the Grid Operators to call very expensive generation.

ETI is busy developing a range of innovative solutions and ideas to meet the dual set of challenges and opportunities that come with creating a future-proof energy sector rooted in sustainability. We are glad to be working with them to ensure that they have the strategies at their disposal to make their much-needed plans a reality.