Banks Renewables, the green energy business which has 11 wind farm projects across Scotland and the north of England, has announced plans for a £100 million battery storage project in West Lothian.

The project will see a section of an industrial park near Bathgate re-designed into a two-hectare battery site capable of supplying two hours of power to 600,000 homes.

Planning permission is expected to be sought by the end of the year with local businesses given priority for contracts.

Banks Renewables has just been sold by the family-owned Banks Group to Canadian asset manager Brookfield, chaired by former Bank of England governor Mark Carney. The deal is said to have an enterprise value of $1 billion .

Banks is based in County Durham and has offices in Hamilton and Leeds. It ceased coal extraction in 2021 and over the years has diversified into residential and commercial property, renewable energy generation and storage. It also operates in the quarrying, plant maintenance, transport and infrastructure services sectors.

Gordon Thomson, projects director at Banks Renewables said: “The proposed Pond Battery Storage project in West Lothian marks a very exciting time for us.

“Battery storage projects like this are becoming increasingly important in Scotland’s push for net zero.

“When it’s not sunny or windy, battery energy storage can allow us to dip into the reserves by using pre-generated energy in the batteries to supply to the national grid and reducing our reliance on energy derived from imported fossil fuels.”