Villagers up in arms over battery storage farms amid fears facilities ‘waiting to explode’

But a local campaign group want to put a stop to the construction before it begins.

The Save Our Villages campaign group have been protesting against the plans with the message “green fields not battery fields” and “say no to BESS, we don’t want the mess.”

WATCH NOW: Anna Riley speaks to locals over battery farm fears

They are against plans to build two battery farms on farmer’s fields within their rural community that could store solar and wind-powered energy.

Fears around the risk of fire has fuelled widespread opposition to the construction and Russell Greenwood, Save Our Villages Campaigner, told GB News: “They [the battery farms] might explode, they all said Titanic wouldn’t sink, and it sunk, so I’m just concerned.

“There’s also no legislation in regards to building these battery storage energy farms.

“Nothing yet has been written by the British government on how to build them, how to design them properly, how to test the batteries. It’s all ad hoc, it needs more development – we don’t want to be a guinea pig.

“They’re not 100% safe and with houses literally 200m away, schools, it’s just scary to me. There’s over 100 megawatts of stored energy which equates to over 100 tonnes of TNT sat basically in our fields waiting for the day to explode.”

There is also concern about the impact the scheme could have on wildlife.

A Save Our Villages Campaigner who did not want to be named said: “Both sites are in heavily designated wildlife areas with two RSPB statutory bird reserves around here, SSIs and other wildlife designated areas.

“RSPB Fairburn is the home for some of the UK’s rarest birds, both resident and migratory. Lin Beck and Sheffield Beck run along these two sites and we do not want anything from these industrial sites to cause any kind of ecological issues with our beautiful wildlife and our ecology around here.”

The group is gaining increasing support with hundreds of members opposing the scheme.

Alison Davis, Save Our Villages Campaigner, said: “The villagers are absolutely furious about it. There’s so many reasons not to build these battery storage sites on these locations.

“This is not about not wanting renewable energy, our campaign group are fully supporting renewable energies, but this technology is not renewable energy, it’s energy arbitrage.”

The ward councillor for the area has also joined residents in objecting to planning permission for the battery farms that Harmony Energy and Banks Group want to build here.

James Lewis, Kippax and Methley Ward Councillor told GB News: “We think for them to be considered for whether they’re approved or not, there’s many issues that need to be looked at around how it looks in the landscape and the impact like that.

“But really, dealing with the risk of fire and how that can be prevented is something that a lot of local people are concerned about and we’d like to see that properly addressed in the planning application by the applicants.

“If they don’t reassure people, we’d like to see the planning applications turned down.”

Cllr Lewis does not believe that this is the correct site for the proposed battery farms.

He continued: “This is an old coal mining area, coal used to be a huge part of our energy supply and it isn’t anymore, but there’s better places to put facilities.

“This is an open field, it’s greenbelt, it’s a landscape area, yet there’s lots of industrial areas around here, lots of undeveloped and previously developed land that can be brought forward.

“There must be better sites to put things than on open fields like this that have been farmer’s fields for decades and that are protected as a special landscape area.”

Harmony Energy, who proposes to build one of the battery farms, says more battery farms are needed to help the UK cut carbon emissions.

In a statement, the company said: “We use Lithium-Ion Iron Phosphate systems which are extremely safe and have been rigorously fire tested using international safety standards.

“Schemes would not be financeable or insurable if they were deemed to be a significant risk, and there are at least 130 utility scale battery systems operating safely in the UK.

“A biodiversity habitat enhancement scheme has also been proposed.”

This was echoed by the Banks Group, who have put in a planning application for the other battery farm nearby.

In a statement, the company said: “Specialist fire safety consultants have been involved from the beginning and fire detection and suppression technology is planned for each of the containers to manage any risk.

“The units would be located a safe distance apart, while state-of-the-art cooling and a 24-hour monitoring system means that electricity can be instantly shut off and fire protection systems activated if any rise in temperature is detected.

“Alongside this, the project will actually significantly improve local biodiversity.”

Last month there was a Tesla battery fire in Australia at one of Queensland’s first large-scale battery storage sites run by Genex. Nobody was onsite at the time and the cause of the fire is being investigated.

The fire was contained, but fire officers were advised by Tesla to allow the fire to burn out, prompting a warning to nearby residents to stay indoors to avoid the hazardous smoke.

In the UK, a huge blaze which took 59 hours to extinguish was caused by an explosion at a controversial mega-battery site near a residential area in a Liverpool suburb in September 2020.

A report by Merseyside Fire & Rescue Service found that efforts to put out the blaze were hampered after water hydrants proved 'inadequate'.

In response to the concerns raised in West Yorkshire, the Fire and Rescue Service Area Manager for Service Delivery, Scott Donegan said: “As a fire and rescue service one of our main roles is fire prevention and providing safety advise for major developments, whether that be office or warehouse space, residential dwellings or battery storage facilities.