COUNCIL bosses say they’re confident that safety concerns around battery energy storage sites planned for East Ayrshire can be adequately addressed.

A cluster of applications has been submitted for the sites between Coylton and Ochiltree, while four more are proposed for Kilmarnock.

And while the facilities, known as BESS for short, won’t pose the same visual impact as the dozens of wind farms erected in the area over the last decade or so, the latest trend in the renewables sector does pose questions around safety.

BESS facilities provide a way to store energy created by renewables such as wind and solar generation that cannot be used.

It can then be fed into the grid to provide a back up when energy generation is low.

However, there have been concerns raised about the fire risk around the large number of lithium batteries involved, and the toxic fumes that can be released in a blaze.

Councillors have regularly raised the risk of fire at planning meetings, whether approving smaller applications or responding to consultations for the larger facilities considered by the Scottish Government.

Applicants have pointed to a variety of steps taken to address risks such as overheating in hot weather.

The industry says that there is a greater understanding of fire risks overall, with additional precautions now included in designs.

There is one cluster of applications between Coylton and Ochiltree, and another in Kilmarnock, with the four in Kilmarnock accounting for the vast majority of the total capacity.

One application has been revised and just one has been refused. This adds up to capacity of around 1400MW.

To put that into perspective, it was reported that, at the end of 2023, there was operational capacity of just 3.6GW across the whole of the UK.

A BESS can take the surplus energy created at times of high surplus production and feed it back into the grid when the energy production drops due to lower wind speeds.

While the technology is relatively new, East Ayrshire Council’s planning department say that BESS facilities would be covered by health and safety legislation and that the Scottish Fire and Rescue Service would be consulted on any application.

Asked whether the BESS facilities would be monitored once operations begin, an EAC spokesperson said: “Operators will implement their own internal monitoring processes to monitor the operation of their BESS developments.

“If legislative requirements come forward which affect the operation of any existing or future BESS developments, then this may have a bearing on any other such developments in an area.”