Crash concern for Telford battery storage site

Highways officials have raised concerns over ‘risks’ of micro-energy storage energy systems near Telford’s roads.

In response to one application for a Battery Box near a roundabout they told colleagues in Telford & Wrekin Council’s planning department that there was a risk of ‘errant’ vehicles crashing into it and causing a fire or explosion.

That application for a box with four batteries in a row surrounded by 2.44m high fencing would have been 6m from a roundabout at Halesfield 1.

It was eventually refused after planners and the applicant were unable to resolve issues in time.

Planners in their decision wrote: “The Highway Authority consider the siting of the proposed Battery Box to have the potential of accidental errant vehicle strikes and potentially presents a highway safety risk to highway users.

“This concern is further exacerbated with the above-ground structure not being passively safe and containing electrical apparatus which may result in fire or explosion when struck.”

The Shropshire Fire and Rescue Service had told planners that even though there are “relatively few recorded fire incidents involving battery energy storage systems, when affected by fire, they pose a significant environmental and safety hazard”.

The fire service said “further measures may be required to mitigate the risk of fire and the risk posed to the environment in the event of a fire”.

A second application, for a micro-energy storage system on a roadside verge near Ercall House, in Stafford Park 1, has been conditionally approved after highways officers raised their concerns.

Highways officials had issues over the ‘legality’ of micro-energy structures which might block access to existing buried highway or utility infrastructure.

But planners on that occasion said that there were other ways to “control the legality of their presence and associated works within the publicly adopted highway”.

Both applications had been lodged by AMP Clean Energy which currently has more than 225 assets around the country, including two in Shropshire.

AMP Clean Energy is developing up to 1,250 such Battery Boxes in the UK over the next three years.

They each have a footprint of around 24 square metres, equivalent to roughly two car parking spaces.

The idea is to store electricity when demand for it is low and release it back to the grid during periods of high demand.

Agents for the company had told planners that the systems have been developed to cope with an “increasing demand for electricity with the electrification of transport and heating systems”.

They add: “Stored electricity from the Battery Box will be exported and consumed locally.”

The company says Battery Boxes are part of a “new era on infrastructure that we will need to support our changing lives and shift to net zero”.

It says each one has the “potential to power 200 homes for four hours where there is a disruption to the supply to an area”.