The Secretary of State, Matthew Pennycook, has granted planning permission for a 23MW solar project with 57MW of battery storage to be installed in Warwickshire.
It will be operational for 40 years and a revised application for the solar and storage project was submitted in October 2022 by Enso Green Holdings. Enso Energy is a renewable energy developer that recently co-developed the first off-site solar and storage project. transmission level.
Pennycook, the minister who approved the plans on behalf of the Secretary of State, has spoken out in favor of the development of solar energy in Britain.
The Warwickshire project, Honiley Road Solar Farm, had been approved by Warwickshire District Council’s planning committee in July 2023, but was ‘revoked’ by the then Secretary of State for the Department for Leveling Up, Housing and Communities in February this year.
Jeremy Wright, Conservative MP for Kenilworth and Southam, wrote that the Secretary of State should refuse the application, citing green belt concerns. An inspector visited the site on February 20.
According to the government website, the Secretary of State can ‘call in’ – that is to say take over – planning applications, rather than letting the local authority decide whether the application is ‘contrary to national policy in significant respects’ or is of national importance.
Notably, since the Labor government came to power, the department has been renamed the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government and is led by a new Secretary of State, Angela Reyner.
The 58 hectare project will be located in the Green Belt, meaning that ‘very special circumstances’ (VSCs) had to be proven before permission was granted. It is recognized that the impact on the Green Belt weighs ‘substantial weight’ against the plans.
However, the potential harm to the Green Belt is “clearly” outweighed by other considerations and as such VSCs exist.
What’s interesting about the Honiley Road facility is that, despite its size, it did not qualify as a Nationally Significant Infrastructure Project (NSIP) due to its relatively low solar generation capacity, which is below the minimum NSIP threshold of 50 MW .
The need for grid flexibility
With wind and solar projects accelerating under Labour’s climate plans, more flexibility will be needed to avoid grid shrinkage. Recent market research from Solar Media has shown that the UK energy storage market is experiencing substantial growth, as is co-located storage with solar, with this capacity expected to increase to more than 1 GWh by the end of 2024.
To add weight to the expanded role of battery storage, changes have recently been made to capacity market rules that will support this participation of batteries in the capacity market (CM).
The first update to National Grid ESO’s factor reduction methodology in six years was implemented in its electricity capacity report this year. It will prevent crowding out of the market around a single term as the proportion of an asset’s capacity paid for the CM contract value will increase, impacting the next round of auctions in February 2025.
