Richard Tice calls battery sites a menace. Nigel Farage brands them a con. Reform-led councils have already put the brakes on projects that could store about six gigawatts of clean power, enough to run six million homes. Social media carries those claims far and fast, yet the evidence behind them is wafer thin.
A battery storage site is not all that complicated. It is just an electricity reservoir in the same way that we use water reservoirs and gas storage reservoirs. When wind farms are roaring at 2am on a blustery morning or nuclear plants are cruising through the night, batteries store the surplus. When kettles click on during half‑time or a factory starts the Monday shift, the same batteries pour that energy back. No magic, only a logical solution to one of society’s most pressing issues.
I have watched the tech evolve. Twenty years ago, while running Nissan Zero Emissions Division, I created AESC for Nissan and NEC, built the battery plant in Sunderland that still employs more than three thousand people today. Even back then, concerns about safety of batteries would have been superfluous. We had zero safety incidents two decades ago and the same record holds for modern systems, helped by even better cell designs, sophisticated Battery Management Systems and in the worst case scenario, clever fire suppressant systems.
You can see the results across Britain. A 200 megawatt unit at Blackhillock in Moray came online this spring. North Yorkshire’s Lakeside project, built with Tesla equipment, is already smoothing demand in Yorkshire and beyond. These sites are not taxpayer toys, reliant on subsidies. Investors in these projects see them make money every day by trimming peaks and soaking up spare gas, wind and solar energy that would otherwise be wasted.
Households also gain. Ofgem’s own studies show storage lowers system costs because wind farms are no longer paid to stand still. The Carbon Trust reckons a well‑planned network of batteries could cut bills by about £50 a year per home by the end of the decade. A far cry from the pricey gamble critics claim.
Households win, investors win, what about workers? Jobs follows the investment. Last month, the factory I opened in Sunderland secured a further £1 billion for a second gigafactory in Sunderland, adding another thousand jobs. Every battery pack that leaves the line needs electronics, cooling kit, software and lorries. Those contracts stay in the exact regions ministers say they want to level up and turn into powerhouses.
Elon Musk once called batteries the new oil. A man known for hyperbole, but here he is dead on. Countries able to store electricity at scale will set tomorrow’s energy prices, just as oil producers once did. Britain, with first‑rate wind, short transport routes and deep capital markets, should be leading that race, not sniping from the sidelines for cheap political points.
Of course, safety should always be front of mind. Today’s units sit in steel containers with gas detectors, water mist systems and automatic shut‑offs, all monitored round the clock by sophisticated battery management systems.. The Health and Safety Executive already regulates batteries under existing rules. That is a solid, enforceable framework, and not a dangerous Wild West portrayed by Tice, Farage and the like. China is mandating for “zero fires” and logically we should follow, but using UK development electronic and software, embedded within the BESS architecture, to detect potential cell runaway scenarios and shut them down before there is any discharge. In the same way that the UK invented the Lithium-Ion battery, we lead in the control there-of and have the opportunity to create high value jobs in the UK.
Cost fears look dated too. The price of a lithium iron phosphate pack is now under £70 per kilowatt hour and still falling. A medium sized site can be funded entirely from normal power‑market income, which explains why pension funds and sovereign investors keep writing cheques so readily.
Opponents say they speak for working families struggling with the cost of living, yet their stance strands cheap wind on Scottish hills and forces gas plants to idle in the background. That pushes up balancing charges and, in turn, everyone’s bill. Batteries buy that spare power for pennies then release it when supply tightens, all without a puff of carbon.
Any MP, councillor or campaign who wants the detail is welcome to it. The conversation will be dry with little political expedience to be gained, because good engineering usually is. Like water towers and reservoirs, batteries either meet their test limits, or they do not. When they do, they just get on with the job silently in the background.
Voters seem to understand and are now at odds with the politicians opposed to battery energy storage. Polling last month showed solid support for local battery projects across every age group and party affiliation. People spot (and like) cheaper bills, faster connections for new renewables and fewer diesel generators humming behind supermarkets.
Parliament now faces a simple choice. Back storage, unlock private capital and put a floor under energy costs, or fuel poorly understood sentiments that sends investment and jobs elsewhere. Britain should be proud to have built the world’s first pumped‑storage plant at Ffestiniog, Wales in 1963. We should not let ill informed and politically motivated culture wars stop us building its 21st century successor.
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