British Solar Renewables has retained the services of chartered surveyors DM Hall to help it acquire sites for battery storage developments in Scotland.
BSR’s sister company BSR Energy is to focus on the deployment of utility-scale storage in the UK, and DM Hall will assist by identifying greenfield, brownfield and unterutilised warehousing locations in Scotland that would be suitable for such developments.
The sites would need to be close to power lines and substations while also being in areas with necessary spare grid capacity to secure a connection agreement.
Sites would be priced based upon the available capacity at the nearest substation and paid for on a per-MW basis.
Kevin Jackson, senior associate at DM Hall, said the firm was particularly interested in talking to landowners who had previously secured grid capacity for renewables developments that have since fallen through as a result of subsidy cuts.
“The site area required for these projects is relatively small making them an ideal way of generating income from underused corners of yards or fields. The batteries are essentially stored within large shipping containers meaning that either external areas or excess space within existing commercial buildings may be suitable,” he added.
Meanwhile David Peill, commercial director at BSR, said battery storage’s growth potential in the UK was huge.
“We wanted to retain the services of Scottish commercial property experts who can drive that growth and given their network of offices throughout the country and knowledge within the sector DM Hall were the first choice,” Peill said.
Having been a UK solar stalwart, BSR has pivoted towards a significant focus on battery storage and has already collaborated on a number of projects, including the Copley Wood solar-plus-storage site developed with Western Power Distribution.
It has too launched a new business unit Omnio, dedicated to providing free storage installations to the “overlooked” C&I market.
Earlier this year it relocated to a new headquarters in Somerset, a move which the company’s MD Graham Harding said reflected the “continued confidence” in renewables and storage.