Buxton battery stores energy for 90,000 homes 

Atlantic Green, a subsidiary of Nofar Energy and Interland, is building the 60MWh facility at Waterswallows, expected to be running from May 

An ambitious facility to store renewable energy is being constructed near the market town of Buxton in Derbyshire. When fully functioning later this year, the Buxton Battery Energy Storage System (BESS) the amount of energy needed to power 90,000 homes for two hours. 

Wind turbines at Carsington Pastures, Derbyshire, photo by the Roaming Picture Taker

As we’ve reported before, renewable sources of energy such as wind and solar can depend a bit on the weather, meaning that the times energy can be most plentifully generated don’t always match peak demand. The BESS solves this problem by simply storing energy until it’s needed. 

That means more homes and businesses can take advantage of cheaper, cleaner energy, with less reliance on fossil fuels and the national grid.  

London-based law firm Howard Kennedy, which advised on matters such as lease negotiations, grid connection documentation and planning requirements, estimated overall costs of constructing the BESS at some £20.6m and that once running it will then generate earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortisation (EBITDA) of some £3.6m per year. That would mean the project paid for itself in less than six years, and that green energy makes good business sense as well as being good for the environment. 

Atlantic Green has similar initiatives in the pipeline, including the more than 600MWh ‘Project Cellarhead’ in Staffordshire expected to be in action in the second quarter of 2026, and the more than 270MWh ‘Project T’ coming in 2028. 

Sam Currie, Project Manager at Atlantic Green, told BBC News that, ‘The battery energy storage market in the UK and globally is growing. We’ve also got sites cropping up where you have got a core location. So you will have wind farms or solar farms for example and there will be a battery farm put alongside them to store the green energy that is produced.’

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