Stonestreet Green Solar gains UK consent for co-located storage project

• The UK approved Evolution Power’s 99.9-MW Stonestreet Green Solar project, which includes battery storage to shift energy into evening peaks.

Evolution Power has received development consent for the 99.9-MW Stonestreet Green Solar project, a scheme that integrates on-site battery storage to provide dispatchable clean power and grid support. The approval from the Department for Energy Security and Net Zero moves the Kent-based project from planning to delivery, adding another hybrid asset to Britain’s emerging fleet of flexible renewables.

At its core, Stonestreet Green pairs a modern utility-scale PV plant with a multi-hour battery. High-efficiency (often bifacial) modules on single-axis trackers maximize annual yield, while the battery soaks up midday generation and discharges during the evening ramp. The design enables fast frequency response, voltage control, and synthetic inertia via grid-forming inverters—capabilities that help stabilize the network as inverter-based resources become the backbone of supply.

Planning consent arrived with robust conditions. Expect construction traffic routing away from villages, noise and glare limits, archaeology safeguards, and landscaping to soften views from public rights-of-way. Biodiversity enhancements—species-rich grasslands under arrays, reinforced hedgerows, and habitat corridors—are embedded to lift net ecological value over the project’s life. Decommissioning provisions ensure the site can be restored at end of life, addressing long-term community concerns.

Grid integration will be sequenced with the local distribution and transmission operators. Early reservations for transformers and protection gear are pivotal to maintain schedule, and staged commissioning should allow parts of the plant to energize while the remainder completes. A unified SCADA layer will coordinate PV and battery operations, co-optimizing energy, capacity, and reserve products to diversify revenue beyond wholesale power alone.

For Kent, the project brings construction jobs and supplier spend, followed by permanent O&M roles and steady business-rates income. For the system operator, it provides a local shock absorber that reduces curtailment on sunny days and damps price spikes after sunset.

Stonestreet Green is emblematic of the UK’s next wave: not just adding megawatts, but shaping them—turning variable energy into dependable, controllable capacity that fits the grid’s daily rhythm.