The partnership between FCC Environment UK, subsidiary of FCC Servicios Medio Ambiente in the United Kingdom and one of the country's leading waste and resource management companies, and Downing Renewable Developments (DRD) has obtained the first planning permission for a set of planned renewable energy facilities on company sites that are no longer in productive use.

This is the Edwin Richards Energy Storage Park, a battery storage facility near Rowley Regis in the West Midlands, with a capacity of up to 100 MW / 200 MWh and which will store enough energy to power up to 300,000 homes for a two-hour period. DRD has worked with FCC Environment to ensure that the Rowley Regis site aligns with the company’s own ongoing operational requirements and community obligations. As one of the UK's largest waste and resource companies, FCC Environment is committed to caring for the environment and the communities in which it operates. The company has a large landholding across the UK and seeks to manage the land in a sustainable way and return it back to productive environmental use once it is no longer required for operational purposes, such as in decommissioned landfill sites, turning them into onshore wind assets, battery energy storage facilities or solar farms.

Downing Renewable Developments was established by investment manager Downing, which has £920 million assets under management in the core renewables space, to develop an exclusive pipeline of solar PV, battery energy storage and onshore wind assets across the UK for the Downing-managed energy funds. DRD was granted its first planning consent last year for a 49.9 MW solar farm in Norfolk, part of its 6GW pipeline of development projects across the country.

FCC Servicios Medio Ambiente has been present in the United Kingdom since 1989 through its subsidiary FCC Environment UK, one of the largest waste management and recycling operators in the British market, where it serves over 23 million people and has 34 waste treatment and recycling facilities.