Situated in close proximity to the Coylton substation and lying outside of any national or local environmental designations, the Westport BESS will support Scotland’s, and the wider UK’s, net-zero emissions target and help to deliver a reliable, resilient, decarbonised electricity system that can meet the demand needs of the 21st century.
“We have designed the Westport BESS to sit sensitively into the local landscape and have carefully assessed and mitigated any potential cumulative effects to ensure a responsible development” said John Hills, Development Project Manager for RES. “We recognise the importance of addressing concerns about potential development impact and a key focus of our discussions with the community has been on effective landscaping and biodiversity enhancements. Whilst the natural terrain and existing planting already help limit the visibility of this critical infrastructure, we have developed a comprehensive landscaping plan to further reduce visual impact while delivering significant ecological benefits. Presenting this plan at our second exhibition reinforced our confidence that our approach to landscaping and biodiversity has been well-received locally. We are grateful to everyone who took the time to participate in our public consultation events and provide valuable feedback, which has helped shape the final application.”
As demand for reliable and resilient energy grows, BESS projects play an important balancing and grid stability role to support the variable generation of renewable energy technologies. Projects like the Westport BESS proposal can respond in fractions of a second and can act as additional network capacity, particularly in times of high demand and network stress.
Short-duration flexibility offered by technologies such as BESS, could reduce energy system costs by up to £10 billion per year by 2050 through minimising the need for new peaking generation, such as expensive gas, and network assets.
RES has been working in the battery energy storage market for a decade and has developed over 830 MW of battery energy storage projects across the UK and Ireland. RES also currently manages over 600 MW of operational storage projects with 24/7/365 monitoring provided from its Glasgow-based control centre.
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