Renewable energy company RES has announced that it has submitted a planning application for a proposed 100MW battery energy storage system (BESS) development in Northern Ireland.
If consent is granted, the Machaire BESS will be located near Rasharkin in County Antrim. The site for the proposed BESS has been chosen for its proximity to the Rasharkin substation, which is located around 500m away, and the lack of national or local environmental designations on the site.
Planning documentation suggests that approximately 112 BESS containers would be installed on the site alongside a BESS control building, a DNO substation building, an auxiliary transformer, spare containers, and CCTV equipment. The project will connect to the grid via underground cabling to the Rasharkin substation.
A number of biodiversity enhancements will be included in the project, something which Peter Henry, development project manager for RES, is keen to emphasise. He said: “We have carefully designed the Machaire project so that it will sit sensitively within the local landscape. Potential visibility of this critical piece of infrastructure would be largely limited by the terrain and existing planting, however, we are also proposing a comprehensive landscaping plan as part of the development.
“The measures in this plan will provide additional visual screening alongside increasing biodiversity in the area. The Machaire proposal is therefore not just good for the environment but also the local biodiversity.”
Causeway Coast and Glen Borough Council’s Planning Committee is expected to decide on the planned development in 2025. While RES has not stated when construction will begin if consent is granted, the developer states that the project will take around 18 months to build.
This is the second BESS planning application RES has announced so far this month. Just a week ago, the company revealed that it had submitted a planning application for a 150MW BESS project in Scotland. The Bishops Dal BESS project is proposed to be located between Leitholm and Birgham in the Scottish Borders region, on a site chosen for its proximity to the Eccles substation.
To date, RES has developed over 830MW of energy storage projects in the UK and Ireland and manages over 600MW of operational storage projects. RES was responsible for the development, construction and ongoing management of Scotland’s first utility-scale BESS, the 20MW Broxburn Energy Storage facility in Broxburn, West Lothian, which was commissioned in 2018.
