Root-Power £45m Soar BESS: flood-resilient design notes for infrastructure engineers
Reviewed by Joe Ashwell
First reported on The Construction Index
30 Second Briefing
Root-Power has secured planning permission on appeal for a £45m, 100 MW battery energy storage system on the banks of the River Soar near Kegworth, connecting into local grid infrastructure as Ratcliffe-on-Soar coal-fired power station is phased out. To address Environment Agency flood concerns, the BESS compound will be raised above ground level to allow floodwater to pass beneath, with an additional sunken storage tank providing extra attenuation volume. The scheme is designed for a 15–20 year operating life, targeting local peak-shaving, frequency support and improved grid stability.
Technical Brief
- Appeal decision required Root-Power to demonstrate flood compatibility of the raised BESS platform and compound.
- Additional attenuation is via a dedicated sunken storage tank, acting as sacrificial floodwater volume.
- Capex is stated at £45m for the 100 MW installation, implying high-value civil and electrical works.
- Root-Power committed to “sensitively landscaping” the site to deliver high biodiversity net gain targets.
- Scheme is framed as supporting local residents and businesses by reducing outage risk and price volatility.
Our Take
Within our 449 Infrastructure stories, relatively few UK pieces involve repurposing legacy thermal sites like Ratcliffe-on-Soar power station, signalling that Root-Power is operating in a niche but growing space of grid-scale storage on former fossil assets.
A 100 MW storage facility tied into National Grid in Leicestershire is likely to play into the UK’s constraint-management challenges around the River Soar and East Midlands corridor, where intermittent renewable generation has been outpacing local flexible capacity.
With a 15–20 year operating horizon, this £45m scheme will overlap multiple UK regulatory cycles for capacity and ancillary services, meaning Root-Power’s revenue stack will depend heavily on how National Grid evolves products for fast-response storage over the next two decades.
Prepared by collating external sources, AI-assisted tools, and Geomechanics.io’s proprietary mining database, then reviewed for technical accuracy & edited by our geotechnical team.
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