Investor Renewable Power Capital (RPC) and renewable energy developer Greenfield have secured planning permission for two battery energy storage system (BESS) projects in Britain.
The 30 MW Coventry BESS and 49 MW Sudmeadow Road BESS bring the total progress under a partnership between Greenfield and RPC to 273 MW across seven projects.
Both new projects have secured grid connections following the National Energy System Operator (NESO) queuing reform, which saw more BESS offer connection dates than expected but still leaves many developers without viable progress for their energy storage sites.
Sudmeadow Road BESS is planned for a brownfield site and will deliver a net biodiversity gain of 300% in linear units and a 10% gain in area units. Coventry BESS, on a gray belt site, will see a net gain of 13.97% in habitat units and a 51.30% gain in hedgerow units as a result of ecological improvements outside the area, the companies said.
The partners’ portfolio includes five further BESS sites approved in 2025 first went together in 2023RPC and Greenfield said they would jointly develop at least 500 MW of battery storage in Britain.
The partnership started when RPC acquired two projects from Greenfield, the 40MW Tredington BESS and the 22.8MW Steventon project. Those two sites a building permit was obtained in early 2025and in June the third BESS of the partners, a 49.9 MW plant in the Vale of Glamorgan, Waleswas approved by the city council.
On January 19, Solar Power Portal will host a webinar discussion on the results of the grid connection queuing reform. Joining the webinar are Josh Cornes, analyst at Solar Media Market Research, Joe Colebrook, head of network connections at Innova, and Tom Williams, senior power systems consultant at Blake Clough.
We wonder what the future holds for greenfield BESS, as the oversupply of the technology means connections are now almost impossible to obtain, with 153 GW of projects deprioritized in the connection queue, moved to Gate 1 or removed from the queue entirely. More information And sign up for the free webinar today!
