Resewable Energy Company RES has announced that it has submitted a planning application for a proposed 100 MW Battery Energy Storage System (BESS) development in Noord -ierland.
If permission is granted, the Machair Bess is located near Rasharkin in County Antrim. The site for the proposed Bess was chosen because of the proximity of the Rasharkin -under station, which is approximately 500 meters away, and the lack of national or local environmental indications on the site.
Planning documentation suggests that approximately 112 BESScontainers would be installed on the site in addition to a Bess control building, a DNO sub -station building, a auxiliary transformer, reserve containers and CCTV equipment. The project will connect to the Rasharkin -Under Station via underground cabling.
A number of improvements for biodiversity will be included in the project, something that Peter Henry, development project manager for RES, wants to emphasize. He said: “We have carefully designed the Machair project so that it will be sensitive in the local landscape. Potential visibility of this critical piece of infrastructure would be largely limited by the site and the existing planting, but we also propose an extensive landscape plan as part of the development.
“The measures in this plan will offer extra visual screening in addition to increasing biodiversity in the area. The Machair proposal is therefore not only good for the environment, but also for local biodiversity. “
The Planning Committee of Causeway Coast and Glen Borough Council is expected to decide on the planned development in 2025. Although Res has not stated when the construction will start if permission is granted, the developer states that the project will take approximately 18 months to build.
This is the second Bess planning application that RES has announced this month so far. Only a week ago the company revealed that it had submitted a planning application for a Bess project of 150 MW in Scotland. The Bishops Dal Bess project is proposed to be established between Leitholm and Birgham in the Scottish border area, chosen on a site because of the proximity of the ECCLES under station.
To date, RES has developed more than 830 MW of energy storage projects in the VK and Ireland and it manages more than 600 MW of operational storage projects. RES was responsible for the development, construction and continuous management of the first utility scale Bess of Scotland, the 20MW Broxburn Energy Storage Facility in Broxburn, West Lothian, which was commissioned in 2018.
