Councillors in crunch meeting over plans for huge solar farm in Kent
Protestors are expected to gather - saying the battery storage proposals aren't safe
Protesters are gathering this evening (February 28th) to urge councillors to reject a battery safety plan for what is set to be the UK’s biggest solar farm.
The government gave the green light for the Cleve Hill Solar Park, located in Graveney, between Faversham and Whitstable, in May 2020.
Tonight, members of Swale Borough Council’s (SBC) planning committee are meeting to vote on the battery safety management plan for the site.
The plans require a 25-acre 150 megawatt battery storage facility to store energy generated by the 880,000 solar panels at the site.
However, the safety plan has faced stiff local opposition, with more than 100 Swale residents writing in to the council to criticise the proposals.
A protest is set to be held outside Swale Borough Council’s offices in Sittingbourne ahead of the meeting.
Under the safety plan, Cleve Hill will install 112 cabinets containing lithium ferro phosphate (LFP) batteries to store energy.
However, prior to the meeting objectors wrote to the council warning that there have previously been more than 65 fires and explosions reported in similar battery storage systems across the world.
Lithium battery fires cannot be extinguished with water, so the plans are meant to detail how Cleve Hill would store huge quantities of water to cool surrounding units – preventing any fire from spreading.
Cleve Hill has been made to undertake modelling on the possible movement of smoke plumes towards nearby Graveney and the village school.
However, last week campaigner Marie King of Graveney Rural Environment Action Team (GREAT) raised concerns that “the modelling they did was only on a fire, not on an explosion”.
SBC’s own report for the planning committee states LFP batteries are “more subject to explosion risk than other types”.
Council planning officers are recommending that planning committee members vote to approve the plans.