An energy storage facility will be built on fields despite local opponents’ warnings it could have a “catastrophic” effect on the landscape.
Renewable Energy Systems Ltd was narrowly given planning permission to build the facility on part of a field near the Spennymoor electricity substation at Thinford Lane, Thinford.
Applicant Jenna Folkard said storing and releasing electricity was essential for a stable system with increasingly complex supply and demand needs.
The project would help provide energy, prevent blackouts, benefit the grid network and all consumers and allow more renewable projects, she told a Durham County Council planning committee meeting.
She said it was carefully designed and sited, away from residential properties and mostly screened by vegetation and planting, with a pond and woodland to help biodiversity.