Quick Take
The Santa Cruz County Board of Supervisors has scheduled a hearing on rules regulating the development of battery storage facilities in January. This follows a vote to delay a discussion of the ordinance for at least three months.
The Santa Cruz County Board of Supervisors will revisit rules regulating battery energy storage facilities in January. This comes after elected officials delayed their discussion of the ordinance earlier this week, citing safety concerns.
On Tuesday, the five-member board voted unanimously to put off any decision regarding the ordinance and tasked staff to incorporate additional safety and environmental recommendations into the proposed legislation. County staff were scheduled to bring back a new version of the regulations in March, but will now weigh tighter rules for battery storage at the Jan. 13 meeting, said county spokesperson Jason Hoppin.
The supervisors’ decision comes less than a year after a blaze just over the Monterey County line in Moss Landing intensified concerns about battery storage facilities in Santa Cruz County. The 300-megawatt facility owned by Texas-based Vistra Corp. — the largest battery facility in the world — caught fire on Jan. 16 and burned for three days. It flared up again a month later, and was finally extinguished a day later, on Feb. 19.
Elected officials emphasized the need for local control over the regulation of battery storage facilities, and raised concerns about the current draft of the county’s ordinance.
Supervisors asked staff to include ongoing soil and water monitoring in the next draft of the regulations. Under the current draft, developers would have to submit baseline data on air quality, surface water, groundwater and soil (to compare with future data if a problem were to occur at the facility) and to regularly monitor air quality, but not soil and water quality.
The board also tasked county staff with regulating battery disposal, chemical runoff and emergency access, specifically at the site on Minto Road outside Watsonville where New Leaf Energy has proposed to build a 200-megawatt battery storage facility.
Hoppin told Lookout that some concerns raised by supervisors are already addressed in the ordinance, but “not readily apparent.” He added that staff had already addressed their concerns, like hazard mitigation, but just needed to change the language to make it clear.
He said the county hopes scheduling a second discussion on the ordinance will satisfy New Leaf Energy, the Massachusetts-based developer that is waiting on the parameters of the local permitting process that the ordinance will spell out.
The company has previously told Lookout that it’s committed to the local process, but could seek project approval directly from the state’s Energy Commission. John Swift, a representative for New Leaf who was at Tuesday’s meeting, said the company would be open to waiting for the county, but would not commit at that moment.
“I know that they are under tremendous financial pressure,” Swift said of the company. “They have spent enormous amounts of money with the state and with this process so far, and at some point they’ve got to make a decision to move on.”
In a written statement to Lookout, New Leaf said it was disappointed at the board’s decision to not move the ordinance forward and into the environmental review process as the company expected it would in order to retain local control.
The company added that its proposed project already addresses a lot of the concerns raised by elected officials on Tuesday, such as emergency response planning, runoff prevention and committing to a project labor agreement for construction of the facility.
New Leaf says it remains hopeful that the county will come back as soon as possible with a revised draft ordinance, according to the statement. The company is currently assessing if, and for how long, it is possible for them to continue waiting for a “viable local permitting path.”
“January represents what is likely the point of no return on the calendar,” the company said.
This is the third time supervisors have delayed the battery storage discussion. First, county officials said they wanted to review environmental tests after the Moss Landing fire. Then, they waited on a battery storage safety bill authored by state Sen. John Laird to pass in the state legislature and get signed into law.
––
FOR THE RECORD: This story was updated to include comments from Massachusetts-based developer New Leaf Energy.
––
Have news that should be in Lookout Briefs? Send your news releases, including contact information, to news@lookoutlocal.com.
