Tewkesbury Borough Council has approved plans for a new battery energy storage facility.

The new facility could power 2,400 homes for a day.

It will be installed on a 1.58ha agricultural plot at Tredington, between Tewkesbury and Cheltenham.

The development to the south of Tredington House Farm will provide standby electricity storage capacity into the local network at peak times, to avoid fluctuations and blackouts.

It will also help avoid transmission losses, which can be up to 14%, when electricity is transmitted over long distances.

The facility's times of generation will match times of peak demand within the local network, and generation can be controlled remotely.

The system will complement intermittent sources of renewable energy such as wind, tidal and solar power, by balancing services for energy production and consumption.

The applicant, Greenfield Energy Developments Ltd, has more than 30 years' experience in the design and development of key energy-led technologies, such as solar, battery, EV, gas and hydrogen. It has delivered over 200MW of battery storage, both alongside solar development and as a standalone technology.

The completed scheme will consist of: 40 battery units; 20 future augmentation battery units; 10 DC combiner boxes; transformer and switch room; 10 PCS; a spares container; a control and welfare container; a customer substation; a DNO substation; a fire water pumphouse; fire water storage tanks; security gates and fencing; Aux transformer; and 12 CCTV cameras on 4m tall posts.

The battery storage units and inverters will be housed in shipping containers or similar, each measuring approximately 2.8m. The units will look like standard shipping containers, in keeping with many yard and open storage areas in the other local industrial and commercial developments in the open countryside. The majority of the development will be no more than 3m in height.

The site and plant will be connected to the local electricity distribution network. The point of connection to the National Grid infrastructure is on the same area of land, around 100m east of the site.

The development has been designed to respect the character of the landscape and use the strong field boundaries to integrate it into the landscape. All trees and hedgerows on and around the site will be retained and additional planting provided to fill any gaps in the existing boundary.

A typical 10MW battery storage plant can provide enough power for 1.5 hours of electricity at peak times for approximately 600 homes. This 40MW facility could provide enough electricity for a whole day (during average and low demand times) for 2,400 homes.

The development will operate for a temporary period of 40 years. On decommissioning, the site will return to its original agricultural use.