From NOT A LOT OF PEOPLE KNOW THAT

By Paul Homewood

h/t Philip Bratby

From the Telegraph:

What happens when a picturesque village in West Yorkshire learns it is to be home to a huge new Battery Energy Storage System – a BESS? As one might expect, the residents react with anger and mobilise to raise funds and fight the plans, despite being told it is key to Ed Miliband’s quest to grow green energy, supposedly reduce bills and keep the lights on. They point out that the land chosen, which is used to grow food and borders a historic conservation area, isn’t suitable. The BESS, which will look much like a large number of shipping containers lined up in rows, will scarcely blend in with the small village which is home to some particularly fine 17th and 18th century grade-listed buildings.

This is the fault line running through Labour energy policy as it careers towards a 95 per cent clean electricity target by 2030. The grid needs increasingly to store and manage intermittent, highly variable supplies of weather-dependent renewable energy. Put simply, when windmills and solar panels are producing more electricity than is wanted, the oversupply can be used to charge up a BESS – and this avoids the need to pay renewables operators to stop producing power, a practice that cost us all £1bn last year. When there isn’t enough renewable output to satisfy demand, a BESS can put its stored energy back into the grid. No feasible amount of BESSs could cope with long periods of low wind and sun – the “dunkelflaute” phenomenon – but they are essential for ironing out shorter-term spikes and troughs in a renewables-heavy grid.

But back to Heath village near Wakefield. Labour has dominated politics here for generations and fierce local opposition to the scheme has panicked the party. A clutch of local MPs, including Foreign Secretary Yvette Cooper have rushed to oppose the plans alongside the local Labour council which unanimously rejected them.

Unfortunately for them, more BESS capacity is a cornerstone of Ed Miliband’s troubled energy policy and Heath is unlucky enough to have a good grid connection nearby. The developer of the mega battery has appealed the council decision so the Government’s Planning Inspectorate will now decide whether to approve the plan. Local democracy will potentially be overruled.

Full story here.

Heath is a lovely old village, as the drone footage brilliantly illustrates:

The battery storage planned will be 100 MW, with two hours duration, enough to keep the GB grid going for 17 seconds!

This is the same size as the Clay Tye storage at Upminster in Essex, also owned by Harmony Energy who want to build at Heath:

One particular problem is what happens at the end of the battery life. We know that they won’t last much more then ten years or so. This raises the question of who will pay to decommission them.

My understanding is that wind and solar farms must keep a capital reserve for this purpose. It may be the same with batteries as well, but that is of little use if the company simply folds up.

Harmony Energy are not a big, well resourced company. Its most recent Annual Accounts, up to Dec 2023, indicate turnover of £2.5 million and a pre-tax loss of £8.9 million.

Net Assets fell from £55.3 to £42.0 million.

The Directors’ report hardly fills you with confidence either!

What guarantees are there that Harmony will still be around in ten years time?