Battery Energy Storage System (BESS) application statistics: EIR release

Information requested

ECU Applications Database - BESS Applications

The ECU applications database holds information for BESS in the following categories. It allows the user to search the database for planning decisions made 28 Days before the current date of the search. I do not have the skills to interrogate databases, and the information I require from the database is not readily available using advanced online search tools.

Can you please supply the following information?

The Number of applications received from 2022 to date 15 Sep 2025 for BESS in Scotland, broken down by the 32 unitary council areas.

Please show the following for each Unitary area.

1. The total number of Applications received, sorted by year

2. The total number of Applications, by year, that have received approval from the ECU

3. The total number of Applications, by year, that have been rejected by the ECU

4. The total number of Applications, by year, that have received consent from Scottish Ministers

5. The total number of Applications, by year, that have been rejected by Scottish Ministers.

6. The total number of Applications, by year, that have been rejected by the ECU

7. The checksum total by unitary areas by year for each of the categories above

8. The total for all the unitary areas combined for each of the categories above

I would expect the results to be displayed similarly to this example:

Unitary area name:
Year:
Total BESS Applications received
Total BESS Applications approved by ECU
Total BESS Applications Consented by Scottish Ministers Total BESS Applications rejected by Scottish
Ministers Total Bess Applications rejected by ECU Checksum total

Sum Total for all Unitary areas for the full date range of data requested ( all 32 unitary areas added up ):
Sum Total BESS Applications received
Sum Total BESS Applications approved by ECU Sum Total BESS Applications Consented by Scottish
Ministers Sum Total BESS Applications rejected by Scottish Ministers Sum Total Bess Applications rejected by ECU

For clarity please use this definition of checksum " a digit representing the sum of the correct digits in a piece of stored or transmitted digital data, against which comparisons can be made to detect errors in the data.

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 Regulations. 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.

Please find attached in ‘Annex A’ the breakdown in figures, sorted by Council area and year, for all BESS applications received from 2022 to 15 September 2025 as requested.

The figures combined for all the 32 Council Areas are as follows:

Total applications received	90
Total consented	48
Total rejected	0

For clarity, there are no separate figures included for ‘Applications approved by ECU’ and ‘Applications Consented by Scottish Ministers’ as ultimately the determinations are made by Scottish Ministers and there is no additional approval process for ECU.

The sum total of consented & rejected applications does not always match the total number of applications received as a number of these applications have not yet reached determination stage.

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.

EIR 202500484429 - Information released - Annex A

File type

Excel document

File size

23.5 kB