Developers of Renewable Energie RES has submitted a planning application to the Energy Constent Unit (ECU) of the Scottish government for a 150 MW Battery Energy Storage System (Bess).
The 150 MW Westport Bess is located on land north of Killoch Colliery between the villages of Coalhall and Ochiltree, about 9 km west of Cumnock in East Ayrshire. The duration of the system has not yet been announced.
RES said that the Bess will make contact with the National Grid via the Colyton station, about 2 km southwest of the proposed site. The project site covers 18.3 hectares of land.
According to the planning application, the Westport Bess will work for 40 years, after which the Bess will be taken out of use. The construction phase will take an estimated between 21 and 24 months.
John Hills, development project manager for RES, emphasized that De Bess was developed with an important focus on feedback from community consultation.
“We recognize the importance of tackling worries about the impact of potential development, and an important focus of our discussions with the community is effective landscape architecture and improvements of biodiversity,” Hills said.
“Although the natural terrain and the existing plants are already helping to limit the visibility of this critical infrastructure, we have developed an extensive landscape plan to further reduce the visual impact and at the same time deliver considerable ecological benefits.
Res said that the Bess will offer grid stability and the balancing services, to support the absorption of technologies for generating renewable energy.
RES recently submitted a planning application for another 150 MW Bess in Scotland last month. 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 is currently managing more than 600 MW of operational storage projects. RES was responsible for the development, construction and constant management of the first utility scale Bess of Scotland, the 20 MW Broxburn Energy Storage Facility in Broxburn, West Lothian, which was commissioned in 2018.
