Quick Take
Local activist Becky Steinbruner says the public needs to boycott Central Coast Community Energy because its leadership refuses to be transparent or answer public questions about the company’s embrace of hazardous lithium battery energy storage facilities. She says the public still doesn’t have answers from the Moss Landing fire and is not willing to accept new grid-scale lithium storage facilities in Santa Cruz or Monterey counties. A group of community members has asked asked 3CE to adopt a moratorium on lithium storage projects and to pursue safe non-lithium technology instead.
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The horrible Moss Landing fire was a wake-up call for everyone in our community. Now, we must be vigilant about other plans for lithium battery storage in our area, specifically in Watsonville, Aptos and Santa Cruz.
And, we must demand transparency from those claiming the technology is now safe.
That is why I and a group of citizens are raising questions for Central Coast Energy (3CE) as it embraces lithium storage projects. Specifically, why has the leadership of 3CE refused to acknowledge multiple public requests to divest of risky and hazardous lithium-based battery energy storage system (BESS) facilities? Why are they ignoring the public, whose main focus is on safety and environmental health?
Instead, the company has silently moved ahead with new, potentially dangerous large grid-scaled lithium battery facilities in Monterey County and appears uninterested in considering alternatives.
Therefore, we, the customers, who compose 94% of the electric utility ratepayers in the county, must protest with a boycott of 3CE by opting out of its service.
The Moss Landing Vistra lithium battery energy storage system fire that began Jan. 16 shook residents in Santa Cruz County and across the Monterey Bay area and Salinas Valley. The fire’s toxic plume of heavy metals caused contamination and adverse health impacts. The public still has not yet received information about the cause of the fire or definitive analysis of the toxic plume.
Since that devastating fire, members of the public have attended many 3CE board meetings to voice concern regarding the risks of lithium battery technology, especially large grid-scale lithium BESS facilities, because these facilities have a history of fires and explosion. People have repeatedly asked that 3CE, which has operated as an alternative to PG&E in our area since 2017, not support lithium BESS projects, and adopt a moratorium on lithium BESS, because we believe it is so risky and hazardous.
Yet, every time the public expresses concern, 3CE has not responded to or even acknowledged those public concerns. This has even happened at public meetings. At an Aug. 5 meeting of the Santa Cruz County Board of Supervisors, representatives answered questions from supervisors, but not the public.
This chronic dismissive silence is unacceptable.
It was only during the public’s astute questioning of 3CE staff at the June 25 Santa Cruz County Commission on the Environment meeting that we learned that the 3CE operations board, just last November, approved an exclusivity deal for electricity from a new large lithium BESS in Monterey County – the Holman BESS LLC, partnering with Clearway Energy.
Clearway Energy Group LLC is in the process of designing and permitting this new 750 megawatt battery energy storage system which will use lithium-ion technology with a four-hour discharge duration. It will be located near the Moss Landing substation.
The agreement quietly approved by 3CE granted Holman BESS LLC the ability to begin the process of formal permitting to connect to the electrical grid and ensured 3CE exclusive rights to the energy that will be stored in the new large lithium BESS project.
Again, when residents asked about this new large lithium BESS project in our backyard, we got silence.
3CE employs a marketing strategy focused on offering energy from “renewable sources,” supposedly cleaner than fossil fuel sources, and better for the environment.
Leadership of 3CE, which includes Santa Cruz County Executive Officer Carlos Palacios and District 5 Supervisor Monica Martinez, zealously pushes the narrative that the agency simply must meet its marketing strategy goal of 100% renewable energy by the year 2030. These same county leaders are scheduled to soon consider approving the county’s new ordinance to allow three of these large grid-scale lithium BESS facilities in our neighborhoods.
Notably, the county has linked arms with 3CE to also adopt the 2030 goal in the Climate Action and Adaptation Plan (CAAP), which is a full 15 years sooner than the state’s 2045 goal. This is causing a feverish push to move rapidly, blindly embracing lithium BESS at the expense of public and fire responder safety and environmental health risks.
The county’s leadership is also unresponsive to public concerns voiced regarding lithium BESS, and many requests for a moratorium.
These leaders claim a different lithium battery chemical composition is safer, and that the metal containers enclosing them would isolate any fire. However, a 2024 meta-analysis by a team of researchers at the University of Sheffield in England, LFP batteries are less likely to experience thermal runaway, but if they do catch on fire, they are “significantly more toxic” than NMCs.
Alternative non-lithium BESS technology exists, but lithium is the well-funded investment darling of the battery industry, even though it is far from being environmentally friendly to produce or to recycle.
A boycott is the only way that 3CE leadership will pay attention.
Leadership at 3CE simply must divest of lithium BESS technology, adopt a moratorium on grid-scale lithium BESS, and reconfigure its unrealistic 2030 marketing strategy goal to align with the state’s goal of 2045 in order to actively seek implementation of safe non-lithium energy storage systems that in fact do exist.
Leaders at 3CE need to talk to the public and to admit that lithium is not “clean,” and requires great amounts of energy and water to develop, with mining that the U.S. Department of Labor warns could involve child labor. Lithium mining in the U.S. will require vast quantities of water, and has already caused wells near mining operations to go dry.
Sodium BESS technology is available as an alternative. China is already shifting manufacturing focus to sodium batteries. Other non-lithium BESS technologies exist.
The California Energy Commission is funding pilot projects for non-lithium BESS development, but the 3CE portfolio continues to quietly embrace dangerous lithium grid-scale BESS … and keep it quiet.
Customers can boycott 3CE’s bad policies by opting out of 3CE service, and urge others in their service area that spans from Santa Cruz County to Santa Barbara to also opt out.
3CE garnered 94% of the ratepayer service accounts in Santa Cruz County when the utility went online in 2017 because unless customers actively chose to remain customers of Pacific Gas & Electric, we were automatically signed up as 3CE customers. You can easily opt out by calling the Customer Support Center (877-455-2223). Your account will be seamlessly transferred to PG&E, whose electricity price rates are nearly equal to the rates 3CE charges, and you will have no service interruption. Many who have already opted out of 3CE report their monthly bill actually decreased. After one year, you can return to 3CE if you wish.
We need this boycott to protest 3CE’s unacceptable policy that promotes toxic, explosive grid-scale lithium battery storage and fires in our communities. They just are not willing to pay attention to the people otherwise.
Becky Steinbruner has lived in rural Santa Cruz County for over 40 years. She is actively involved in local issues and twice ran for District 2 supervisor against the incumbent to give voters a choice on their ballot. She hosts a regular podcast called “Community Matters” on Fridays on Santa Cruz Voice and urges people to take an active role in issues that are important to them.