Question to the Department for Energy Security & Net Zero:

To ask the Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero, whether he has made an assessment of the adequacy of (a) police, (b) ambulance and (c) fire rescue services located near solar photovoltaic farm battery energy storage systems.

The Government has updated Planning Practice Guidance to encourage battery storage developers and local planning authorities to engage with local fire and rescue services, and for local planning authorities to refer to guidance published by the National Fire Chiefs Council (NFCC). The NFCC’s current guidance proposes a minimum distance of 25 metres between grid-scale batteries and occupied buildings.

The Department only considers consenting for solar projects over 50MW, and under this regime no solar PV farm battery has been consented which has been deemed an unsafe distance from a residential dwelling. Projects below 50MW are considered under the local planning regime.