Mey Battery Energy Storage System correspondence: EIR release

Information requested

I request disclosure of the following in relation to application reference ECU00004838 (Mey Battery Energy Storage System):

1. All internal correspondence, emails, meeting notes, and file records held by the Energy Consents Unit, Scottish Government officials, or Ministers regarding the classification of the applicant’s recent submissions as “clarification” rather than “additional information” under the Electricity Works (Environmental Impact Assessment) (Scotland) Regulations 2017.

2. Any internal guidance, legal advice, or policy notes considered by ECU in deciding whether or not to exercise powers under Regulation 25 in this case.

3. Copies of any communications between ECU and the applicant, the applicant’s agents, or Highland Council specifically concerning the handling of the recent submissions and whether they constitute additional environmental information.

For the avoidance of doubt, this request covers the period from 1 June 2025 to the present.

Response

As the information you have requested is 'environmental information' for the purposes of the Environmental Information (Scotland) Regulations 2004 (EIRs), we are required to deal with your request under those egulations. We are applying the exemption at section 39(2) of the Freedom of Information (Scotland) Act 2002 (FOISA), so that we do not also have to deal with your request under FOISA.

This exemption is subject to the 'public interest test'. Therefore, taking account of all the circumstances of this case, we have considered if the public interest in disclosing the information outweighs the public interest in applying the exemption. We have found that, on balance, the public interest lies in favour of upholding the exemption, because there is no public interest in dealing with the same request under two different regimes.

This is essentially a technical point and has no material effect on the outcome of your request.

I shall address each of your points in turn:

Points 1 & 2 – While our aim is to provide information whenever possible, in this instance the Scottish Government does not have the information you have requested.

The Scottish Government does not hold any internal communications on categorizing the applicant’s recent submissions as “clarification” rather than “additional information” under the 2017 Electricity Works (EIA) Regulations nor any internal guidance, legal advice, or policy notes considered by ECU in deciding whether or not to exercise powers under Regulation 25 in this case. Therefore, there is no information available for release.

For clarity, this development has been subject to a screening process and has been formally determined not to require an Environmental Impact Assessment. Consequently, it does not fall within the scope of the Electricity Works (Environmental Impact Assessment) (Scotland) Regulations 2017 and is therefore not subject to the provisions contained therein.

Under the terms of the exception at regulation 10(4)(a) of the EIRs (information not held), the Scottish Government is not required to provide information which it does not have.

This exception is subject to the ‘public interest test’. Therefore, taking account of all the circumstances of this case, we have considered if the public interest in disclosing the information outweighs the public interest in applying the exception. We have found that, on balance, the public interest lies in favour of upholding the exception. While we recognise that there may be some public interest in this information, but clearly, we cannot provide information which we do not hold.

Point 3 - Some of the information you have requested is enclosed within Annex A.

While our aim is to provide information whenever possible, in this instance we are unable to provide some of the information you have requested because:

• An exception under regulation 11(2) of the EIRs (personal information) applies to some of the information.
• An exception under regulation 6(1)b of the EIRs (publicly available information) applies as some of the information is already available Here in the ECU portal. Some of the information was previously provided in response to an earlier Environmental Information Regulations (EIR) request submitted by you. That response was issued on 24 September 2025 under reference 202500482132.

An exception under regulation 11(2) of the EIRs (personal information) applies to some of the information requested because it is personal data of a third party and disclosing it would contravene the data protection principles in Article 5(1) of the General Data Protection Regulation and in section 34(1) of the Data Protection Act 2018. This exception is not subject to the 'public interest test', so we are not required to consider if the public interest in disclosing the information outweighs the public interest in applying the exception.

An exception 6(1)(b) of the EIRs (information already available) is subject to the ‘public interest test’.

Therefore, taking account of all the circumstances of this case, we have considered if the public interest in disclosing the information outweighs the public interest in applying the exception. We have found that, on balance, the public interest lies in favour of upholding the exception, as the information is already publicly available.

About FOI

The Scottish Government is committed to publishing all information released in response to Freedom of Information requests. View all FOI responses at https://www.gov.scot/foi-responses.

FOI 202500482352 - Information Released - Annex A

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