A battery storage site has been unanimously agreed for a five hectare piece of land in Three Legged Cross.
The green belt site off Holt Road is adjacent to another battery storage site of similar size at Emmers Farm, with three solar ‘farms’ also in the area.
The 47.5MW site is close to the Mannington electricity sub-station, one of only three in Dorset with the capacity for access to the National Grid, which developers EDF Renewables, said was key to its decision on the site location.
The 5 hectare site is close to recognised Dorset heathland sites with a pylon in one corner of the field, the power lines running off to the Mannington sub-station 250metres away.
Only two properties are within 250 metres of the site, the closest, Willow Cottage on Holt Road, being 85 metres away, which is said to be likely to hear a “hum” from the site, but is not thought, by acoustic consultants, to be objectionable.
Access to the site will be via a private track with most of the site, 4.2hectares, offered to be retained as a natural area and only just under a hectare being used for the battery units and two parking spaces.
In total the site will have 13 large battery units, with 65 batteries contained within them, and seven inverters/transformers, together with other ancillary equipment, all surrounded by a 3metre perimeter fence and closed circuit tv cameras.
Dorset councillors heard there were no public objections to the proposals and none from statutory consultees, including Holt parish council, the Environment Agency and Natural England.
To date 570MW of battery storage systems have been agreed in Dorset, the largest was approved on Monday for a 400MW scheme at Chickerell, on the outskirts of Weymouth, which will be one of the biggest in the world.
The other Dorset sites already with approval, or in the process of gaining planning consent, are at Shaftesbury, Monkton Wylde and Lytchett Minster.