Leeds battery farm: Plans submitted to install new facility on greenbelt land in Allerton Bywater

The firm Harmony Energy wants to install the facility across a 1.7 hectare site on the junction of Newton Lane and Barnsdale Road in Allerton Bywater. Battery farms take in power from renewable energy sources and then pump it out onto the National Grid when demand is higher.

But despite being championed as an eco-friendly source of power, such sites are drawing rising concerns about the risk of fire, caused by the overheating of lithium within the batteries.

Separate proposals for a battery farm near Rothwell were recently withdrawn after hundreds of objectors raised safety fears, with many referencing a huge blaze at a site in Liverpool in 2020.

Addressing similar concerns surrounding a proposal in Wakefield last year, Harmony UK said: “We appreciate it must be alarming to those who are unfamiliar with the technology or industry safety standards to hear news of battery fires.

“However, to put this into context, there has only been one fire in the UK on a battery site. Harmony Energy cannot comment on the specifics of that fire, but we can state that the technology in that instance is not being proposed in our scheme. Nevertheless, we take the risk of fire seriously and so we always keep this in mind at the design stage.”

The Local Democracy Reporting Service (LDRS) contacted the firm to clarify how the technology it users differs from that at the Liverpool site. No response had been received at the time of writing.

In an FAQ section on its website, Harmony also said: “Lithium-ion batteries like those that we would install make very little noise and also create no harmful emissions. They are proven on a global scale and the technology is extremely safe and reliable.”

In a design and access statement attached to its planning application, the company said: “It is considered that the proposed development can be implemented without significant adverse impacts arising from any site constraints or environmental issues.”

Public comments on planning applications are now invisible following a pilot scheme recently introduced by Leeds City Council, so it is difficult to gauge what levels of support or criticism the scheme has had thus far. The local authority will, however, make a decision on whether or not to approve the application in due course.