Giant battery storage facility plans are outrageous, say campaigners

Statera hopes a new battery storage facility will help support growth in renewable energy

Campaigners have slammed plans to build one of the largest battery storage facilities in Europe on their doorstep as "outrageous".

Energy company Statera proposed building 900 storage containers on 26 acres of land in the village of Granborough, Buckinghamshire.

Steve Tyler, from Claydons Solar Action Group, said "It's not needed and it's not needed here."

Statera argued it was needed to support the rapid growth in renewable energy.

The government has set a target of 30GW of flexible low carbon storage by 2030.

There is currently about 6GW of storage available based at around 120 operational sites in the UK.

The average battery storage facility holds 80MW but capacity is ramping up.

The government said technologies such as electric batteries could save consumers up to £10bn per year by 2050 while supporting up to 24,000 jobs.

Campaigners such as Steve Tyler, right, are concerned the proposed site is too big for their area

Plans have been submitted for a 500MW facility the size of 26 football pitches, called East Claydon Storage, near the village.

There are separate proposals to build a 2,000 acre solar farm opposite.

Mr Tyler said: "It's outrageous, it simply isn't needed, the scale of the thing is far too big."

Residents have said they have also been impacted by major construction work on HS2 and East West Rail.

Defending the choice of location, Oliver Troup, Statera energy development lead, said: "It's close to demand, not too far from London. While it feels quite odd that we're in this rural setting it's strategically important."

He explained he was sympathetic with concerned residents and said plans had been changed to avoid traffic going through the village.

Mr Troup said: "Ten hectares of the site is battery containers, 15 hectares is biodiversity and permissive paths.

"The impacts can be mitigated. I appreciate when you're living next to these developments it's not easy but once built they are acceptable."

Oliver Troup said he appreciated it was not "easy" for local residents

Mr Tyler said another major concern for campaigners was the fire risk posed by lithium-ion batteries:

However, Mr Troup wanted to reassure locals that "Statera operates battery sites already and we've got a proven track record of offering safe battery systems".

He said: "There's a lot of mitigations that go into each container and there are layers of protection and the site is designed to mitigate those fire risks."