Long Duration Energy Storage (LDES) application statistics: EIR release

Information requested

ECU Applications Database - LDES Applications

The ECU applications database holds information for LDES (Long Duration Energy Storage systems) and, 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 January 2024 to date 15 Sep 2025 for LDES 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 LDES Applications received
Total LDES Applications approved by ECU
Total LDES Applications Consented by Scottish Ministers Total LDES Applications rejected by Scottish Ministers Total LDES 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 LDES Applications received
Sum Total LDES Applications approved by ECU Sum Total LDES Applications Consented by Scottish Ministers Sum Total LDES Applications rejected by Scottish Ministers Sum Total LDES 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 below the breakdown in figures, sorted by Council area and year, for all LDES applications received from January 2024 to 15 September 2025 as requested.

All other Council areas, not listed below, are a nil response.

Argyll & Bute Council
	2024	2025	Total
Number of LDES applications received	1	1	2
Number of applications consented	0	0	0
Number of applications rejected	0	0	0

The Highland Council
	2024	2025	Total
Number of LDES applications received	1	1	2
Number of applications consented	1	0	1
Number of applications rejected	0	0	0

All Council areas
Total applications received	4
Total consented	1
Total rejected	0

Please note, this request has been interpreted broadly to include all forms of Long Duration Energy Storage (LDES).

For any future information request, we would encourage you to be as specific as possible, to help ensure a more accurate and comprehensive response.

Further details regarding project proposals can be obtained from the Energy Consents portal: https://www.energyconsents.scot/Default.aspx. From the main page of the website, click on the search tab, followed by 'Advanced Search.' There is then the option to search by case type and status, before selecting the 'go' button which returns the search results. These can then be exported to various file formats to allow for additional analysis.

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.