Last month was the first time since June that both pre-application submissions and full planning consent submissions for grid-scale UK BESS surpassed 1GWh – just before NESO announced the results of its grid connection queue reshuffle.
That’s according to data from Solar Media Market Research’s Battery Storage: UK Pipeline & Completed Assets Database report.
Pre-application submissions for battery energy storage system (BESS) projects in November totalled 615MW/1,230MWh in capacity while full planning applications reached 870MW/1,740MWh of capacity.
A pre-application submission is a voluntary procedure allowing developers to engage with local councils and decision makers on a project, while a full planning application submission is it final submission, and requires the inclusion of far more project information.
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The figures contrast sharply to October’s, when there were only 100MW/200MWh of pre-application submissions and 250MW/500MWh of full submissions. September saw a much higher 1,450MW/3,800MWh of full submissions, but no pre-application submissions at all.
This all comes as the UK’s UK’s National Energy System Operator (NESO) announced it would offer grid connections to up to 2035 to 283GW of clean energy projects following a reform of the interconnection queue, which had ballooned to 722GW awaiting offers, far more than what was needed.
With BESS being oversubscribed prior to and during the process, 153GW of projects have effectively been cut from the queue. 83GW received gate 2 offers, 33GW in phase 1 once again, far less than the 123GW that’s either in planning, approved or under construction.
That announcement yesterday (8 December) capped off a process that started earlier this year and has most likely affected BESS development submissions, planning applications and consent decisions throughout 2025.
November was the quietest month for project approvals by authorities in 2025 so far. Only 321MW/642MWh of projects were approved. The monthly average for the first ten months of the year, as per our Market Research data, was 2,120MW/4,443MWh of approvals (an average duration of just over 2-hours).
Meanwhile, as of the end of November, there is around 10.6GW/23.4GWh of BESS under construction. Last month’s article in this series did a deep-dive on this pipeline of projects, which should come online in the next few years.
In terms of operational capacity, the figure remains around 7.8GW/11.7GWh as of end-November with no major projects having been completed since August, when 427MW/854MWh came online. It should, however, be noted that Varco Energy recently started commercial operations at a Fluence-deployed 57MW/137.5MWh project near Liverpool, announced this week.
News in the UK’s BESS industry in November was primarily around project final investment decisions (FID), M&A and optimisation, covered by our sister site Solar Power Portal.
RWE and Statera both finalised financing for respective mega-projects of 350MW/700MWh and 680MW/1,360MWh while Gresham House acquired a 100MW/200MWh project. Meanwhile EP Group and Ganfeng Lithium enlisted GridBeyond and EDF, respectively, to optimise BESS projects in England and Scotland.
