Calls to halt new storage proposals

Campaigners are demanding an immediate moratorium on new battery storage developments.

- KATRINE BUSSEY, PA SCOTLAND

The call comes as a new report found projects already proposed could provide four times more electricity storage than will be needed by the end of this decade.

Dr Kate Jones, director of the charity Action to Protect Rural Scotland (APRS), said planning permission had been granted for battery storage sites “metres from 5,000-year-old prehistoric sites, in woodlands, and on prime agricultural land”.

She hit out as a new report from APRS insisted there is a “huge oversupply of battery storage” in the planning system.

The countryside charity acknowledged such sites “play an increasingly critical role” in the country’s energy infrastructure, allowing electricity generated by renewables to be stored in order to help balance supply and demand.

But the report said that, when it comes to Battery Energy Storage Systems (BESS), Scotland has four times more capacity in the planning system than the maximum required by 2030 and 3.4 times more than the maximum needed by 2050.

While research suggests that between 5.9 and 6.4GW (gigawatts) of BESS storage is required by 2030 - rising to between 6.4 and 7.6 GW by 2045 - data showed projects with a total capacity of 24.8 GW were in the planning process by June 2025.

Schemes with 13.5 GW of storage capacity have already been given the go-ahead.