Spare a thought for the residents of Camblesforth, near Selby, a village of 1,500 nestling in the shadows of Drax power station’s cooling towers. On the one hand, Drax Power is the largest employer in the area by far and has undoubtedly brought considerable investment. But on the other hand, residents have watched for decades as the 850-foot chimney of what was once Europe’s largest coal fired power plant, spewed out clouds of greenhouse gases.
After converting to renewable wood pellets in 2021, Drax now emits hundreds of tonnes of particulates known as PM10s, far more than the amount that London’s Ultra Low Emission Zone is trying to cut.
But now the village is facing a new problem, as predatory energy companies vie with each other for space to access a high-capacity gateway to the national grid for solar, wind and battery energy.
Camblesforth’s reward for hosting Drax for 50 years is a dizzying array of additional energy generating/storage infrastructure either already built, under construction, in the pipeline or waiting for planning permission in a process that increasingly looks like infill.
The drive to net zero has brought fear to Camblesforth
There are existing wind turbines to the south west between Drax and Airmyn. Two 50MW solar farms are already under construction to the north and south of Camblesforth village, and the energy secretary Ed Miliband recently approved a 400MW solar array for Boom Power across the River Ouse from Drax. In January, he also approved Drax Power’s bioenergy with carbon capture and storage application, a project set to cost the UK energy bill payer an estimated £31.7bn over 25 years.
The public examination for a 190MW solar farm to the west of Camblesforth on 475ha of prime agricultural land, called the Helios project, ends on 3 June with a decision expected later this year.
Residents are beginning to fear encirclement. Enso Green Energy, the applicant, had the nerve to list 14 other existing or potential energy generating projects in the locality, apart from the sprawling Drax complex – and this is not even the full extent of it.
The BESS case scenario
Enso’s list included four giant battery energy storage systems (BESS) totalling 320MW capacity. Two are already approved at Hales Lane (100MW) and New Road, Drax (100MW), and two await decisions by North Yorkshire County Council, at nearby Barlow (80MW) and Cliffe (40MW). Each of the two 50MW solar farms currently being erected on either side of the village, has a 10MW BESS. Helios itself has a seventh BESS, but with a decision expected in the next few weeks or months the applicant is – and I quote: “still unable to provide details of the exact number of solar panels or BESSs due to technology changes but has provided a worst case scenario for the BESSs of 76.”
Enso Energy show the BESS containers as 12.2m (40-foot) containers which typically have around 4–5MW minimum each, which would give 350MW total but let’s assume 200MW minimum.
Last week another application by Root Power (99MW) was approved by a single planning officer in a delegated decision, and Brockwell Energy (200MW) have joined the queue, both to be located between Camblesforth and Carlton, potentially making nine installations with about 800MW of installed capacity squeezed in one small area of North Yorkshire, representing about one fifth of the output of Drax itself.
What are BESS systems?
A BESS helps to balance supply and demand in the electricity grid, storing energy when there is over supply and releasing it during short periods of excess demand, mainly – and this may come as a surprise – using thousands and possibly millions of small batteries similar to the ones found in torches or electric vehicles.
These cells are packed together in modules and racks inside 20 or 40-foot shipping containers which also include control systems for monitoring the batteries and energy flow together with systems to change AC power to DC for charging, and DC to AC to supply the grid via transformers. The package also includes a thermal management system to maintain an optimum temperature and dissipate heat, by air or liquid cooling, and usually a fire suppression system.
Grid-scale BESS installations include a number of containers, delivering perhaps 2–5MW per unit. These combine to provide the required total capacity, measured in megawatts. In the case of Root Power at Station Road, Carlton, the application proposed a total capacity of 99MW provided by 12 clusters of 4 x 20-foot containers, presumably producing a little over 8MW per cluster.
They are part of a growing number of BESS systems being installed in the UK and across the world.
Batteries in a BESS
The most commonly used batteries in UK BESS systems between 2020 and 2024 are lithium-ion or LiFePO4/graphite (LFP) cells. A 2022 scientific paperreferenced in a 2024 Commons Library Research Briefing gives an energy density of 160Wh/kg for LFP cells. More recent publications suggest 200-300Wh/kg is now being achieved.
A 99MW capacity BESS system in Buckinghamshire has an energy storage capacity of 198 megawatt-hours (Mwh), and uses 56 Tesla Megapack 2XL systems, each providing 3.9 Mwh and each weighing 38 tonnes, a large proportion being the weight of the batteries, although Tesla don’t provide a figure for the batteries alone, or the number of individual cells.
The batteries may be cylindrical, and relatively small. Tesla for example use type 4680, (46mm dia and 80mm high) batteries in the model Y and Cyber trucks and in 2023 announced plans to use similar LFP batteries in their grid scale Megapack BESS systems. Each battery weighs 355 gms and is able to store a little under 100 Wh. To reach 198 megawatt-hours would (I assume) require around two million 4680 batteries in total, weighing some 700 tonnes.
Other suppliers use prismatic LFP cells which are rectangular and slightly larger, (around 180 x 70 x 200mm high) and safer with what one supplier claims is a “reduced” risk of fire and explosion. Each weighs perhaps 5-6kg, although the energy density is slightly lower. A 99MW /198Mwh installation would still perhaps contain around 120-150,000 individual prismatic LFP batteries, weighing around 600-900 tonnes in total.
Either way, the potential 800MW (1600Mwh) total for the Drax area would bring thousands of tonnes of lithium-ion batteries to the district.
So, what’s the problem?
Firstly, the sheer quantity of different types of energy generating infrastructure engulfing Camblesforth. The national policy statement for renewable energy infrastructure (EN-3) explicitly recognises the risk of clustering around available grid connections and warns planners to be aware of the “cumulative impacts of situating a solar farm in proximity to other energy generating stations and infrastructure”.
In a written parliamentary statement in May 2024, Claire Coutinho, the then secretary of state for energy security and net zero, said:
“When considering whether planning consent should be granted for solar development it is important to consider not just the impacts of individual proposals, but also whether there are cumulative impacts where several proposals come forward in the same locality.”
These considerations are routinely ignored in the rush for cleaner energy.
In one successful appeal against a BESS system near Axminster in Devon, the planning inspector declared it was “within an area of energy infrastructure so its presence would not appear out of place”. This can’t be a reasonable approach in residential areas already jam-packed with cooling towers, pylons and other energy infrastructure.
Secondly and most importantly, safety. Lithium may be the least reactive alkali metal in Group 1 of the periodic table but it still reacts vigorously with water to produce hydrogen gas and a solution of lithium hydroxide. Lithium must be stored in an inert atmosphere, or inert liquid such as purified kerosene or mineral oil to avoid spontaneously combusting.
Extinguishing a fire is highly problematic.
Are lithium-ion batteries safe?
The answer is not, as you might expect, an unequivocal yes. Lithium-ion batteries are usually safe and reliable, but they are not entirely without problems as a report from Autocar shows.
According to Honeywell Safety and Productivity Solutions, 239 fires were recorded in the UK from July 2022 to June 2023 linked to electric vehicles (EVs), an 83% increase year on year mainly due to rising sales of EVs. Some research shows 60% of EV fires are due to a phenomenon known as ‘thermal runaway’ where an exothermic chemical reaction causes a rapid and uncontrolled increase in temperature with the subsequent risk of an explosion.
London Fire Brigade documented at least 178 incidents in London in 2023 in personal light electric vehicle (PLEV), mainly e-bikes.
Bedfordshire Fire and Rescue Service, say more than 100 organic chemicals are generated in an electric vehicle fire, some seriously toxic, specifically hydrogen cyanide and carbon monoxide. LFP fires don’t need oxygen, burn extremely hot and are difficult to cool. Australia-based EV Firesafe suggests it can take upwards of 10,000 litres of water to extinguish an EV fire. In the USA one EV fire is reported to have taken 114,000 litres to bring under control.
EVs contains relatively few cells (192 in a Nissan Leaf, 828 in a Tesla model Y, for example) and PLEVs even fewer (30–100) but grid-scale BESS facilities are far bigger, with cells densely packaged together.
Are BESS systems safe?
The 2022 paper compares grid-scale BESS systems to “ammunition dumps” and points out they also “actively give off heat!” – which needs near constant cooling.
Another academic paper from 2021, by Dr Edmund Fordham MA PhD CPhys CEng FinstP; Safety of Grid Scale Lithium-ion Battery Energy Storage Systems, documents a number of occurrences globally of fire and explosions when the failure of a single cell causes a thermal runaway spreading to neighbouring cells. The electrochemical energy stored in some of these systems is said to be equal to “many hundreds of tons of TNT equivalent”.
In a peer-reviewed journal last December, Oxford professors Peter Edwards and Peter Dobson, writing about the safety of lithium-ion batteries for large-scale BESS systems in the UK, said:
“There is a worrying possibility that BESS could become the next legacy–fire safety issue with all the risks to the public from fire, explosion and toxicity and the attendant clear dangers to employees at these facilities, to First-Responders, Firefighters and the local population as well as to their impact on the environment.”
You may be surprised to learn that the government says: “There are no laws that specifically govern the fire safety of battery energy storage systems (BESSs).”
And Fordham et al, claim that “The explosion potential and the lack of engineering standards to prevent thermal runaway may put control of ‘battery fires’ beyond the knowledge, experience and capabilities of local Fire and Rescue Services.”
The glaring absence of appropriate regulation can be seen in the Root Power project battery management safety plan written by Abbot Risk Consulting which mentions 23 pieces of general legislation the majority of which (eg Lifting Operations and Lifting Equipment Regulations 1998) have little to do with BESS systems and date back well over 25 years before they were even an idea. It is hardly reassuring.
The Health and Safety Executive (HSE) Reducing Risk, Protecting People guidance is from 2001 and mentions batteries (old style lead–acid type) just once in 88 pages.
Regulators are, as usual, playing catch-up.
What guidance exists for BESS?
After a significant fire at a BESS in Liverpool in 2020, the National Fire Chiefs Council prepared recommendations for dealing with fires at BESS sites. This was published in 2023. It is already out of date with new guidelines coming out later this year.
The 2023 guidance called for 6m separation between containers and a minimum 25m distance to any mitigation features “such as blast walls”. Abbot Risk Consulting for Root Power, say: “The BESS units on the site are not 6.0m apart but they are within a distance that will be proven to be acceptable through manufacturers UL testing / fire rating qualification.” They might have added, ‘we hope’.
Note also, the Roots Power project includes an 11m diameter steel tank containing 250,000 litres of water for firefighting purposes. How many developments need that?
The Helios battery management safety plan, also by Abbot Risk Consulting, says: “In the unlikely scenario that the fire detection and suppression system (FDSS) does not extinguish the fire, the understood and interpreted approach to BESS fires being to let them [sic] BESS burn out and contain the fire, making use of the water supply at site if it is required” [added emphasis].
The manufacturers claim a failure rate of just one in 40 million batteries. But BESS systems contain a lot of cells, and these will need to be swapped every few years as their efficiency drops, raising the probability that one day a cell in a BESS sometime, somewhere will fail and propagate a thermal runaway.
Moreover, incidents may not be due to faulty cells but to faulty wiring, poor maintenance, control-system bugs, rodent damage, lightning strikes or even cyber attacks. Voltage transformers in distribution networks have been around for a century but still fail in service, and BESS systems are infinitely more complex.
Energy given off as heat by LFP cells is said to be around 0.2MJ/kg (megajoules) per deep charge-discharge cycle, so roughly 140,000MJ for the 700,000kg of batteries in a 100MW BESS. This is several thousand KW depending on the time taken to release the stored energy.
The planning system is heavily tilted in favour of the applicant
Applicants for these systems are backed by venture capitalists, not known for altruism or philanthropy. They come with deep pockets knowing the financial return is guaranteed and highly lucrative.
How much Enso Energy has spent on the Helios project, for example, is hard to discover, but my guess it’s easily into the low millions of pounds. The money goes on expensive consultants who prepare endless documents (nearly 600) all of which are dense, hard to follow, filled with acronyms and technical jargon. There are literally dozens on flood risk assessment alone, plus agricultural land classification, habitat and bio-diversity assessments and so on and so on.
It is naive to believe he who pays the piper doesn’t call the tune. Every report is like reading the case for the defence written by smart, expensive lawyers. The opposing arguments are either absent or left to individual amateur objectors or small groups with little access to any research or expertise.
It is only when things go horribly wrong and a public inquiry is constituted and properly funded to look into the catastrophe that the tables are turned and the truth is finally dragged out into daylight. Think of the Grenfell Tower scandal.
You can easily imagine, in the aftermath, the applicant, consultants, installers, BESS manufacturers, the Fire Service, HSE, local authority, lawyers and Uncle Tom Cobley and all, sitting in an inquiry pointing fingers at each other trying to wriggle out of any blame.
Let us hope that this doesn’t happen in Selby or anywhere else, but the possibility can’t be dismissed.
Finally, who is Root Power?
The applicant for the Station Road project is Root Power (North) Ltd. They have a flashy website and their ‘Battery Safety Management Plan’ speaks proudly of leveraging, “the global technological capabilities of the company in the selection of all components”.
But the company was only formed in November 2023 and its latest accounts show the profit and loss account negative to the tune of £8,849, and no employees other than the directors who did not receive any remuneration.
Root Power (North) is majority owned by Root Power Ltd, an even smaller firm incorporated in February 2024. It has total assets of just £100 and again no employees.
Root Power is majority owned by YLEM Group Limited, a company registered to an address in Salford, Manchester along with its 27 UK subsidiaries. In 2024 it made a loss of £1.6mn. The owners of YLEM are Alexandra and Thomas Wilhelm based in Liechtenstein and Timothy Hays Scott, residing in Jersey. They seem to prefer well-known tax havens to Salford. Don’t ask why.
I am not singling this company out since the arrangement of shell companies and complex tax affairs are a particular feature of the UK’s renewable energy sector, which increasingly resembles something between the Wild West and Moscow in the mid 1990s. Traditional energy suppliers are strangely absent.
With a barely regulated industry, ministers desperate to attract investment, absentee investors, and new technology described as ‘unexploded bombs‘ and ‘ammunition dumps’ what could possibly go wrong?
Disclaimer: I am not an expert on BESS systems, so if my assumptions and figures are wildly wrong I’m happy to be corrected.
This article has now been edited to correct errors in the storage capacity of LFP cells.
