Image: Rows of Tesla batteries at PG&E’s Elkhorn battery storage facility in Moss Landing on Aug. 15, 2024. (Photo Credit: Dai Sugano/Bay Area News Group)
The Board of Supervisors will take up the issue of Battery Energy Storage Systems (BESS) tomorrow. We will consider a draft ordinance in concept and whether to direct staff to continue the environmental review, public meetings and hearings, and the adoption process into late 2026.
The elephant in the room is New Leaf Energy, which has proposed a 200-megawatt battery energy storage facility outside of Watsonville at 90 Minto Rd. This is really the only energy storage site being considered within the County. Viable sites need to be located near transformers so that they can easily get power to and from the grid. The transformer behind Dominican Hospital is off the table because of its proximity to so many health care facilities and vulnerable people. The transformer across from Aptos High is currently included in the draft ordinance, but is very difficult to develop in practice because it is on a hillside.
It goes without saying that the Moss Landing battery fire made many people very concerned about this issue. Critics of the Minto Rd proposal have pointed to its proximity to homes and agriculture as particular risks. The New Leaf Energy project would use batteries with different chemistry, keep batteries separated in smaller containers, and follow the latest state laws around monitoring and working with the local fire district. Nevertheless, even facilities that take these kinds of precautions do burn, albeit on a much, much smaller scale than the Moss Landing fire.
The more fundamental question is whether the County actually has the power to stop the New Leaf Energy proposal if it wanted to. Currently, there is an available approval process provided by state law (Public Resources Code sections 25545-25545.13) through the California Energy Commission (CEC), which allows the CEC to over-ride local ordinances when approving these facilities based on a finding of public convenience and necessity.
New Leaf has said it will pursue the state approval route if the Board of Supervisors delays the first hearing of the ordinance excessively. The same could be true if the Board created an ordinance that ruled out New Leaf's proposal entirely. Delays cost the company money because it has paid millions of dollars in deposits to the California Independent System Operator— which manages the flow of electricity in the state— to hold its place in the long line of energy projects trying to connect to the state’s power grid.
Some have pointed to Solano County's recently passed ordinance as evidence that the County can regulate these battery storage systems. But Solano may end up being a better example of what county ordinances cannot accomplish. An application there from Corby Energy Systems for developing a 300-megawatt system is moving through the state approval process. It is sited on agricultural land adjacent to a transformer, exactly like the Minto Rd proposal, and despite the fact that the Solano County ordinance bans these systems from agricultural parcels.
Even for projects approved through the state process, the County retains authority over operations and can create strict safety standards. That is the strategy that County staff is proposing with this ordinance and the one that Supervisor Felipe Hernandez and former Supervisor Bruce McPherson have advocated for.
The hearing for this item will be at 1:30PM tomorrow/Tuesday.
