‘We are in the dark’

Public meeting over planned battery energy storage facilities in Cavan

There was standing room only at Killygarry Community Centre last Monday evening (June 17) when dozens gathered for a public meeting to hear concerns and discuss potential submissions for an appeal to An Bord Pleanála regarding planning permission for two battery energy storage facilities in Cavan.

Despite objections at the time, Donegal-registered Accelerate Renewables Limited was given the go ahead from Cavan planners to proceed with plans to build energy storage facilities at Shankill Lower, Clonervy, and at Pottle, Ballinagh.

Planning permission for both sites was granted for a period of 10 years but the proposed facilities have an operational lifetime of 35 years.

Once erected, they comprise energy storage containers installed on concrete plinths; electrical inverters and transformers; underground electrical and communications cabling. The permission also provides for the upgrade of existing agricultural access points from the existing sites.

Some locals living near both proposed facilities are looking at pooling their collective resources to stand against the developments. They are also demanding better controls in the development of battery energy storage system (BESS) facilities nationwide.

In attendance at last Monday evening’s public meeting was Hugh Dillon and Eleanor Wauchob, two vets from Kildare, who last year secured leave to have a judicial review of a decision to allow a 212MW BESS be built at Dunnstown, near Two Mile House.

In their case An Bord Pleanála overturned a decision by Kildare County Council to refuse planning in 2021 predominantly on the chief fire officer’s recommendations. The ABP decision was subsequently quashed by the High Court.

To back up their claims objections, Mr Dillon and Ms Wauchob commissioned Professor Paul Christensen, Professor of Pure and Applied Electrochemistry at Newcastle University, also chief advisor to the National Fire Chief’s Council in the UK, to draw up what turned out to be a damning report.

In his executive summary, having looked at the Kildare file, Prof Christensen suggested the application was “not fit for purpose”.

Those concerns, particularly around dealing with fire safety, Mr Dillon believes, apply to BESS facilities as they begin to appear more frequently on local planning lists around the country.

He accepts that “lessons are being learned” in the industry, which has seen the number of serious incidents drop in recent years.

Mr Dillon feels the crux of the problem in Ireland stems from a lack of regulation and seemingly no Government departmental responsibility.

He and others would like to see more regulation, the need for Environmental Impact Assessment Reports, and for BESS development and management to come under the Control of Major Accident Hazards Regulations 2015, which requires measures to prevent major accidents involving dangerous substances.

The Kildare project would have been one of the largest in Europe if constructed and, by comparison, the proposed 108MW BESS at Shankill Lower is estimated to a quarter that size, containing as many as 48, 40-foot containers. The developer has been given design flexibility due to the technology still evolving.

Mr Dillon and the organisers all acknowledged that the BESS is a recognised solution in a multi-faceted approach to dealing with climate change and the need for greater energy sustainability. But they say it should not come at any cost.

Mr Dillon told those at the meeting that there had been 70 incidents at BESS sites globally since 2018. He conceded the that the number had reduced, showing that “lessons are being learned” by the industry.

Even still, he said problems of thermal runaway remain “difficult to address”, and “particularly dangerous” when it come to sites that use lithium ion batteries for energy storage.

He highlighted three fires in Arizona, one of which required a sprinkler system to run for 10 days.

In Liverpool a blaze at a BESS site lasted 59 hours; and in Geelong in Australia, the fire there burned for three days and took an estimated one million litres of water to bring under control.

He further claimed that another fire in Germany burned for 10 hours, an incident in which two firemen were injured; while an incident at a BESS site near the US-Mexico border resulted in residents within a three kilometre radius being evacuated.

It was “likely”, said Mr Dillon, that the BESS sites in Cavan would be “built to the same standard” as the others, with “no competent authority” currently in place in Ireland to “ensure regulation”.

Electric and chemical fires are the “most difficult to deal with,” stated Mr Dillon.

“BESS is electro-chemical,” he explained.

“Who responsible for clean up?” he also asked if a problem arises, acknowledging that those locations in Cavan are connected or close to Special Areas of Conservation. That alone, Mr Dillon suggested, should merit the need for an Environmental Impact Assessment Report (EIAR).

He said the consultation on developing an electricity storage policy framework “does little” to address safety concerns, and he and Ms Wauchob had submitted extensive data on thermal runaway.

Objecting to projects such as BESS, considered “essential” in the support of national energy infrastructure can be a “lonely place to be” said Mr Dillon, who says they’ve been accused of being “nimbys” among others things.

But he says it’s important for everyone to be informed, and hopes that a Private Members Bill being progressed by Green party Senator Vincent Martin will go some way to making the industry and such installations safer.

Shankill resident Lorraine McGovern spoke about what she described as the “deficiency” in regulation around BESS technology, and the concern that locals have with so many reported incidents worldwide and the “flexibility” granted to developers in planning.

“We don’t know the final outcome,” she said of what is being proposed at the Shankill site, which Accelerate Renewables describe as a “sparsely populated” area.

Ms McGovern said that there are 23 homes nearby, and many of those residents have concern for what she said was the “potential for a major accident”.

“It’s been a steep learning curve,” said Ms McGovern, from the time locals first learned about the planning application to where they area now.

Attempts were made to contact Accelerate Renewables Limited for comment.