The UK had its busiest month of the year so far in July for large-scale BESS project planning consents, with over 5GW/10GWh approved.
The figures come from from Solar Media Market Research’s Battery Storage: UK Pipeline & Completed Assets Database report.
The Report shows that July saw grid-scale battery energy storage system (BESS) projects totalling 5,044MW of power and 10,488MWh of capacity were approved for construction by local councils and other planning decision-makers.
That means the total quantity of approved projects in the UK now stands at 68,915MW/143,678MWh (including projects under construction, but not including projects that are operational).
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Major projects that received the green light include Lightrock Power’s 600MW Stable Green Energy project, Root-Power’s 50MW/100MWh Lucky Star project and projects from ESB, RES and Renewable Connections totalling 490MW, as covered by our sister site Solar Power Portal.
The swathe of approvals made a dent in the total cumulative submitted capacity of projects awaiting planning decisions, falling from 36,193MW/74,897MWh as of the end of June to 32,535MW/67,082MWh at end-July. The figure has been creeping up over the course of 2025, having started the year at 27,868MW/56,588MWh.
The UK clean energy market is in the midst of a huge reform to the process for organising the grid connection queue, with developers in the process of submitting evidence for how their projects are both ‘ready and needed’. Having planning consent in place is a key part of the criteria.
July was a relatively quiet month for projects going into commercial operation, with 35MW/70MWh coming online. It brings the UK past 10GWh of operational capacity, with a total of 6,987MW/10,204MWh now operational.
Solar Media Market Research analyst Charlotte Gisbourne authored a guest piece on Energy-Storage.news a fortnight ago, recapping the first half of the year. The Database also highlights which BESS suppliers have supplied which projects, which we provided a snapshot of in an infographic published last week.
