VILLAGERS near Wellington are battling plans for a huge battery energy storage system (BESS) near the M5 motorway which a conservation group said would be a greater hazard to the public than a nuclear reactor.
London-based Clearstone Energy wants to use 40 acres of agricultural fields beside junction 27 of the motorway, close to the main Paddington to Penzance railway line and Tiverton Parkway station.
It said the development would involve 100 banks of batteries 59 feet long by 17 feet wide by 8.5 feet high housed inside shipping containers or a similar cabin type unit.
There would also be 100 inverter units, 50 transformer units, and a sub-station and switchgear compound connected by underground cables to the battery banks.
The company would turn 24 acres of the site into new woodland and habitat for birds, otter, amphibians, reptiles, bats, and invertebrates.
Rachel Ness, head of planning for Clearstone, said planning permission had already been given for a business park to be built on part of the site but this would not go ahead if the BESS was approved.
Ms Ness said the site would be able to store and export 400 MW of electricity to the National Grid, enough to power all 82,000 homes in Mid Devon District daily.
She said BESS facilities provided ‘essential balancing and flexibility services needed to balance a new generation electricity network underpinned by renewables rather than fossil fuels’, matching weather-dependent renewable wind and solar energy generation to the fluctuations in end user demand.
Clearstone, which was founded in 2016, had already developed nine energy projects in the UK, two of which were in operation and the other seven were awaiting a connection date and were ready for construction.
Ms Ness said there was an ‘accepted and urgent need’ to decarbonise the UK economy to help tackle climate change which meant moving away from traditional fossil fuel energy sources such as coal, oil, and gas.
She said the Government aimed to totally decarbonise the energy network by 2035 so it would comprise abundant, cheap British renewables and cutting edge new nuclear power stations, underpinned by flexibility including storage, gas with CCS, and hydrogen to ensure reliable power was always available at the flick of a switch.
But the Council for the Protection of Rural England (CPRE) said Clearstone was a relatively new company which did not appear to appreciate the complexity of what it was proposing and should not be allowed to develop such a hazardous facility.
Devon CPRE said the BESS would pose a greater hazard to people in the vicinity than would a nuclear reactor - yet the firm had given no detail on the type of battery material or the total number of cells.
It said if the plan was for a nuclear reactor then the power capacity and type of fuel, whether uranium, plutonium, or thorium, would all have to be specified before any consent could be considered.
CPRE said the big risk with battery energy storage was ‘thermal runaway’, where heat accelerated exponentially and fire and explosions jumped from one unit to the next.
This could cause emission of toxic liquids and clouds of vapour into the environment, posing a risk to the travelling public, the environment, and emergency services personnel.
CPRE said the BESS would only store energy and not generate it, so was ‘not a renewable energy scheme’ and would actually lead to increased CO2 emissions rather than reducing them.
It said although Clearstone had agreed a lease on the site for 40 years, the batteries would require changing every eight to 10 years.
Parish councillors in Uffculme and Burlescombe also objected to the plans because the site was close to residents and to key road and train transport links if there was a fire, explosion, or vapour emissions, and they supported the CPRE objections.
Mid Devon District Council closed its statutory public consultation on October 12 but has still been accepting comments and has set itself a target of December 12 to determine the application.