Green light for Derbyshire battery farm on landfill site – despite gas explosion fears

At a South Derbyshire District Council meeting, the plans, from Firstway Solar, for a battery energy farm comprising 104 shipping containers off the A38, between Egginton, Willington and Burton, were approved.

The approval of the site saw seven councillors withhold their votes, with just five councillors voting – all for approval.

Councillors had significant fears over the impact of the would-be battery energy farm on the former landfill which sits beneath the site, which investigations have found to be home to hazardous levels of harmful gases and substances.

Work on the site would not be able to start until a thorough investigation has been carried out and submitted to the council, with necessary areas of remediation completed, councillors agreed.

The facility would be capable of storing 100 megawatts of electricity, which could be used to power 300,000 homes for two hours, the applicant said.

Dave Etheridge, former chief officer of Oxfordshire’s fire and rescue service, and former president of the chief fire officers association, had spoken on behalf of the Egginton applicant, in May, when the decision had been deferred until June.

He had said the facility would include automatic deactivation controls for the battery storage containers if any faults were detected, which would help avoid damage by floods and fires, along with adequate space between units, constant surveillance and water storage on-site.

Mr Etheridge said the site would have the “highest international standard for safety” and understood the concerns of residents and councillors over the fire risk and could offer his professional assurances.

Cllr Andrew Kirke said that a vast amount of entirely unknown and undocumented materials had been dumped in the historic landfill over numerous decades, leaving an “unknown picture of what lies beneath”.

He claimed samples taken from the site through the applicant’s investigations showed concentrations of methane up to 45 per cent, with concentrations of 45-60 per cent said to pose a risk of explosions in confined spaces “such as in shipping containers”.

Cllr Kirke said samples also showed oxygen depletion down to 3.5 per cent which he claimed could pose an asphyxiation risk to construction workers – with 50 people due to be on site during the building of the facility.

He said black and yellow water with an oily film had been found on the site through the applicant’s investigations, along with evidence of arsenic, lead and cadmium at heightened levels, all linked to landfill contamination “leaching into the soil”.

Cllr Kirke claimed this risked “groundwater poisoning” and risk to the nearby Egginton Brook and River Trent, used by Burton’s brewery firms for making beer.

He told the meeting: “The last thing I want is my beer being contaminated.”

Cllr Kirke claimed the site posed “a risk to human health”, including from likely asbestos, with bags of waste found a metre below the plot, with an alleged structural integrity and subsidence risk.

He said: “This facility could lead to a spark and the result doesn’t bear thinking about. It is a recipe for disaster. It could trigger an explosion. It is not a hypothetical but a foreseeable danger. If the land isn’t proven to be safe, this should not happen.”

Cllr Amy Wheelton said brownfield sites were preferred for battery energy sites, but that she had concerns over the plots’ former landfill status, with a risk of “building on something that can combust”.

Cllr David Muller said the plot was “fundamentally unsuitable” with a “serious public health and safety risk”.

He said if the council kept rejecting battery energy farm sites and if they were continually being overturned by planning inspectors, then the authority could lose its decision-making ability.

Cllr Alan Jones said the application posed an “opportunity to get this site investigated” with the risk handled by the applicant, but said he had concerns over the 3km cabling route to Willington, requiring a year of roadworks.

Steffan Saunders, the council’s head of planning, said there would be a “very, very substantial risk” that the authority would face costs being awarded against it if it refused the plans.