Bedford Borough Council has granted planning permission for a 49.9MW PV facility to be built alongside a previously approved battery energy storage system (BESS).
The Thurleigh Road Solar Farm in Bedfordshire will share grid infrastructure with the 69MW/138MWh Thurleigh Road BESS, both developed by UK-based international developer of large-scale solar and battery storage projects, Pathfinder Clean Energy (PACE).
PACE said the two projects will provide flexibility and reduce network management costs in the long term, “creating efficiencies for the grid operator and ultimately helping to reduce costs for consumers”.
With grid connections difficult to come by in Britain, such as reforms to the process by which projects receive bids postponing projectsit is likely that co-location will offer even more benefits by allowing the solar power plant to come online more quickly than if it had waited to secure an individual connection.
The Thurleigh Road site is due to be connected to the electricity grid in 2027. The company’s in-house construction team, PACE EPC, will continue the project.
PACE director Rob Denman described the project’s location as “highly connected”. PACE says it is working with National Grid to develop its portfolio of “strategically located” solar PV and battery energy storage installations.
The company announced that it had obtained planning permission shortly after the results of the seventh Contracts for Difference (CfD) auction were published, in which PACE received contracts for eight projects with an average of 30 MWp.
