Emergency planning and public safety oversight of Battery Energy Storage Systems (BESS): EIR release

Information requested

I request copies of all information held by the Scottish Government, including but not limited to the Resilience Division, Civil Contingencies Secretariat, or equivalent emergency planning functions, relating to Battery Energy Storage Systems (BESS), including but not limited to Mey BESS (ECU00004838) and Rigifa BESS (ECU00004897):

1. Assessments, guidance, briefings, or internal correspondence concerning BESS in the context of:
(a) Civil contingencies
(b) Emergency preparedness
(c) Major accident or hazard planning
(d) Community evacuation, exclusion zones, or shelter-in-place guidance
(e) Multi-agency emergency response

2. Confirmation of whether BESS sites are considered or included within:
(a) Community Risk Registers
(b) National or regional risk assessments
(c) Emergency planning assumptions, scenarios, or exercises

3. Confirmation of whether the Resilience Division or other emergency planning functions are consulted by:
(a) The Energy Consents Unit (ECU)
(b) Scottish Ministers during consideration of Section 36 Electricity Act 1989 applications for BESS developments, and if so:
(c) The scope of that consultation, or
(d) If not, the reason no consultation is undertaken

4. Details of any internal discussion, policy position, briefing note, memorandum, or document indicating which body is responsible for:
(a) Emergency planning
(b) Public safety oversight
(c) Major accident or hazard preparedness in the event of a BESS fire, thermal runaway, or other major failure

5. Correspondence since 1 January 2022 (including emails, internal notes, meeting records, or briefings) between the Scottish Government and:
(a) The Energy Consents Unit (ECU)
(b) SEPA
(c) The Scottish Fire and Rescue Service (SFRS)
(d) Health and Safety Executive (HSE) relating to BESS fire safety, emergency response, or public safety responsibilities.

Additional context

The purpose of this request is to identify whether any Scottish Government function currently holds responsibility for emergency preparedness and public safety oversight in relation to large-scale lithium- ion BESS. Previous FOI requests on these topics were directed to the Scottish Information Commissioner, who confirmed the Commissioner does not hold the information and advised redirecting the request to the Scottish Government.

I request that the information be provided in electronic format where possible.

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 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.

Response to your request

Points 1 and 2

While our aim is to provide information whenever possible, under the exception at regulation 10(4)(b) of the EIRs a public authority may refuse a request for information if it is ‘manifestly unreasonable’.

The Scottish Information Commissioner's guidance on the regulation 10(4)(b) exception says that “a request will impose a “significant burden” on a public authority where complying with it would require a disproportionate amount of time, and the diversion of an unreasonable proportion of its resources, including financial and human, away from other statutory functions.”

In this case, the costs and resources involved in complying with your request would be disproportionate because your request resulted in a vast number of search results which would take a significant amount of time to review and, where necessary, redact. Therefore, your request, as it is currently worded, would pose too much of a significant burden on the public authority.

Because of the volume of records which would need to be searched, a 20 working days extension to the response deadline (under regulation 7 of the EIRs) would still not make the request manageable. For these reasons, we consider that your request is manifestly unreasonable and so we are refusing it under regulation 10(4)(b).

As the exception is conditional, we have applied the ‘public interest test’. This means we have, in all the circumstances of this case, considered if the public interest in disclosing 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 information about considerations relating to battery energy storage systems (BESS), this is outweighed by the public interest in ensuring the efficient and effective use of public resources by not incurring excessive costs when complying with information requests.

However, the following information may be helpful in relation to points 1 and 2 of your query.

The Civil Contingencies Act 2004 and the Civil Contingencies Act 2004 (Contingency Planning) (Scotland) Regulations 2005 is the legislation which outlines the key organisations and their duty toprepare for civil emergencies within Scotland.

In Scotland, the structures which support multi-agency co-operation are the Regional Resilience Partnerships (RRPs). The three RRPs were established in November 2013, and are the North of Scotland (NoS), the East of Scotland (EoS) and the West of Scotland (WoS).

The RRPs are comprised of representatives from Category 1 and Category 2 responders, which are key organisations responsible for ensuring the effective management of emergencies, as well as other organisations and groups who have an important role in the context of resilience. SFRS is a category 1 responder organisation.

You can find further information on the above, including on planning for risk, at: The Civil Contingencies Act 2004 | Ready Scotland

Point 3

The function of Ministers under Section 36 of the Electricity Act 1989 is to determine whether consent should be granted for electricity generating stations, having regard to relevant considerations.

The Energy Consents Unit (ECU) does not routinely consult the Scottish Government Resilience Division or any other emergency planning function to inform their consideration of applications under the

Electricity Act 1989, including those on Battery Energy Storage Systems (BESS). However, as part of consenting, the local planning authority is consulted and through this consultation, they seek a response from the relevant teams on the proposed development. This response is reflected in the planning authority response which ECU take into consideration in deciding the application.

Consultation as part of the process is set out in relevant guidance which can be found at: Electricity Act 1989 - sections 36 and 37: applications guidance - gov.scot

The Scottish Government does not consider a further statutory consultation is required beyond what it already set out above.

Points 4 and 5

While our aim is to provide information whenever possible, under the exception at regulation 10(4)(b) of the EIRs a public authority may refuse a request for information if it is ‘manifestly unreasonable’.

The Scottish Information Commissioner's guidance on the regulation 10(4)(b) exception says that “a request will impose a “significant burden” on a public authority where complying with it would require a disproportionate amount of time, and the diversion of an unreasonable proportion of its resources, including financial and human, away from other statutory functions.”

In this case, the costs and resources involved in complying with your request would be disproportionate because your request resulted in a vast number of search results which would take a significant amount of time to review and, where necessary, redact. Therefore, your request, as it is currently worded, would pose too much of a significant burden on the public authority.

Because of the volume of records which would need to be searched, a 20 working days extension to the response deadline (under regulation 7 of the EIRs) would still not make the request manageable. For these reasons, we consider that your request is manifestly unreasonable and so we are refusing it under regulation 10(4)(b).

As the exception is conditional, we have applied the ‘public interest test’. This means we have, in all the circumstances of this case, considered if the public interest in disclosing 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 information about considerations relating to battery energy storage systems (BESS), this is outweighed by the public interest in ensuring the efficient and effective use of public resources by not incurring excessive costs when complying with information requests.

It may be helpful to know that the Scottish Government will publish a call for evidence on BESS later in 2026 which will help inform a future policy statement on the technology. This is in response to the increasing role of BESS in supporting the energy transition and the need to ensure we have a clear vision for the sector and its role. It is important that the call for evidence and any future statement is informed by the views of a range of stakeholders, including communities hosting BESS. We would encourage you to respond once the call for evidence goes live later in the year.

Finally, you may also wish to consider reducing the scope of your request in order to make it manageable, such as:

• narrowing the timeframe in the request;
• specifying individual Ministers or their special advisors;
• specifying other recipients of the correspondence;
• narrowing the types of information sought.

You may also find it helpful to look at the Scottish Information Commissioner’s ‘Tips for requesting information under FOI and the EIRs’ on his website at:

How do I ask for information? | Scottish Information Commissioner

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.