Nick Timothy, MP for West Suffolk, has spoken to Britain’s Defence Secretary about the potential risk posed to local residents and air base personnel by battery storage sites at the proposed Sunnica solar plant.
Mr Timothy said the Sunnica scheme represented a potential threat to RAF Mildenhall and RAF Lakenheath due to battery energy storage systems (BESS) that could be vulnerable to acts of sabotage by hostile foreign states and terrorists.
He raised the concerns with the Defence Secretary on Wednesday 27 November 2024 following incidents which saw several unidentified drones flying in the vicinity of the Suffolk airbases over the weekend.
Speaking in a Westminster Hall debate, Mr Timothy said: “The Director General of Mi5 recently said that we now face state-backed sabotage and we should expect to see continued Russian acts of aggression here at home. They are ‘on a sustained mission to generate mayhem on British and European streets: we’ve seen arson, sabotage and more’.”
Touching on the potential risk both to residents and to the West Suffolk air bases, Mr Timothy said: “BESS fires on similar sites have been caused by lithium battery failure leading to thermal runaway. This can cause explosions and the resulting fires cannot be extinguished using conventional methods. Four years ago a fire at a BESS site in Liverpool took 59 hours to put out. And similar stories apply elsewhere around the world where these facilities have been constructed. The fires emit toxic fumes which means that people in the vicinity must remain indoors throughout.
“So I think that the risk to the sites given the location of the Sunnica solar farm is quite obvious.”
Mr Timothy asked for a meeting with minister of defence procurement, Maria Eagle — who was present at the Westminster Hall debate — to discuss the matter.
The minister replied: “As far as I’m aware we don’t have concerns about that development in the MoD (Ministry of Defence) but I fully acknowledge that his constituents do and I’m more than happy to offer him the meeting that he sought in order that I can understand more fully the concerns that have been raised with him.”
Mr Timothy also asked the Government to give a clear account of what had occurred during the drone flyover and what the response was likely to be if it continued.
