Planned Offaly battery project to back up power grid

INFORMATION on plans for a battery energy storage system (BESS) near Tullamore was available at a public information event last Thursday.

The project proposed by SSE Renewables at Derrynagall and Ballydaly is located where consent had previously been given for a similar development.

In May last year Grid System Services Ltd, part of the UK Low Carbon group, was granted planning permission by Offaly County Council for its Thornsberry BESS project.

The project was acquired by SSE in November of last year and has now been renamed Tinnycross BESS.

SSE say they will submit a new planning application later this year. The site is on the Tinnycross Road adjacent to an existing ESB substation and close to Lambe's oil depot.

According to the documents filed for the original Grid Systems project, consent had been given for that application by landowners Nicholas Molloy and Mark Lambe, along with consent for use of an access road from landowner Rita Lambe.

It was to be a 150MW facility with 80 containerised battery blocks. The revised project is for a 120MW (250MW-Hour) energy storage system which would be capable of powering the equivalent of over 115,000 Irish homes for up to two hours at a time, during times of peak demand.

The company says Tinnycross BESS will help balance the national grid and provide backup energy when the wind isn’t blowing or the sun isn’t shining.

It is anticipated the project can play an important role in providing the flexible power storage Ireland needs to back up a renewables-led energy system, improving our energy security, and meeting decarbonisation commitments under Ireland’s climate action plans.

SSE expects the project to provide economic benefits to the region, including the payment of development contributions and commercial rates to the council.

If approved by the council, the company says the facility could be operational by the end of the decade.

In a booklet available at the public information event in St Mary's Youth Centre, Tullamore, SSE says it will consider the optimum BESS supplier for the project and will include details on location and size in the forthcoming planning application.

The batteries may be up to 4.5m high and will be placed on modular racks to allow ease of replacement.

The site will be surrounded by natural screening which will be agreed with the County Council but could include newly planted trees, hedges and shrubs.

The facility will adhere to stringent fire safety standards and the individual containers are configured with “sufficient spacing and compartmentalisation to minimise the risk of thermal runaway spreading”.

SSE says a planning application will be submitted this autumn and hopes it will be granted by the winter of 2025.

A timeline provided at the public information event says construction would start in spring of 2027 and the facility would be fully operational by the summer of 2029.

SSE is the developer and operator of the largest wind farm in Offaly, the 29-turbine 101MW Yellow River facility between Croghan, Rhode and the Dublin-Galway motorway.

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In addition, the company says it is developing several wind farms across the Midlands in partnership with Bord na Mona.

It has other BESS projects in Dungannon, Northern Ireland and Mullafarry, Tawnaghamore, Co Mayo. It is exploring a battery project in Tarbert, Co Kerry.

The public consultation on the Tinnycross BESS will continue online until May 29 and more information is available from the company's community liaison team by emailing clo@sse.com or on the website http://www.sserenewables.com/tinnycross

Once a planning application is submitted, the statutory consultation period where observations and submissions can be made, will begin.

A separate company, Lumcloon Energy, in conjunction with Hanwha Energy Corporation, has two operational BESS projects in Offaly, one at Lumcloon and another in Shannonbridge. Both are 100MW.

The Lumcloon BESS is on the site of the former ESB Ferbane peat-fired power station, which was demolished more than 20 years ago, while the Shannonbridge facility is close to the now decommissioned ESB power station, which was also powered by peat.