Do battery energy storage systems belong in our communities?

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The January 2025 fire at Moss Landing ignited strong discussions across our community, with many calling to block future battery energy storage system (BESS) projects. While these concerns are valid, I feel it’s important to weigh both the risks and the benefits before making decisions that could shape our power future.  

I’ve worked with a passion for the environment, technology and public safety for decades — first in solar technology, then as a career firefighter for 23 years, and later leading national battery safety efforts at a Department of Energy national lab. Today, I chair the National Fire Protection Association’s NFPA 800 Battery Safety Code and focus on safety standards for Sandia National Laboratories. 

This experience gives me insight into both the hazards, emergency response and the protections built into modern BESS designs. To those who might think I promote the battery industry: I am technology-agnostic and make no money from battery manufacturers. 

I do believe BESS can be designed and operated safely.

Any energy storage technology can be dangerous if suddenly released. The higher the energy density of a technology often means more intensity when that energy is released during a failure. For example, even lead-acid batteries, which are low energy density, have caused fires and explosions. This is not common, but can happen. Even “safe” options like hydro power have experienced dam failures resulting in hundreds of fatalities, even here in California.

Lithium-ion batteries dominate today’s storage market. Most fires we hear about involve small consumer devices — vape pens, e-bikes, scooters — which are more vulnerable to misuse and poor manufacturing. Large utility-scale BESS are very different: They are housed in robust outdoor enclosures, tested to survive extreme fire conditions, and designed to prevent one failure from spreading to others.  

One of the key safety design features we discuss in the codes considers “size and separation” for safety of outdoor battery enclosures, ensuring that a failure in one stays in that enclosure. This was not present in the indoor Moss Landing BESS, and contributed to the significant fire event. While a BESS fire does produce toxic smoke, so does every fire I’ve been to in 23 years as a firefighter. In fact, I have friends in the fire service who have  retired out on disability from inhaling the smoke from a single car fire. 

In my work while at the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL), we found that utility-scale BESS fires are statistically quite rare. In fact, one major manufacturer reported over 50,000 operational units with only about 10 fires — an extremely low failure rate given the scale.

For those thinking even one fire is too many, you should know there is no electrical product with a zero-failure rate. It’s a dangerous narrative to say any single fire means the technology is unacceptable. Do we ban Home Depots because a couple have burned down, or ban all internal combustion vehicles because thousands burn every year? 

Safety has been my primary focus, and the engineering I have seen in  modern BESS is quite impressive. Most of us pay little attention to many of the lithium-ion batteries all around us; I carry them in my pockets, in my ears listening to music, or next to my bed as I sleep. That’s because failure rates (while not zero) are extremely low. Safety engineers describe “risk” as the frequency of failure with consequences of an event. 

One thing I would like to see from industry is more transparency when failures do occur. Tesla demonstrated this during the Megapack fire in 2022 when a fire occurred in one of the enclosures at the Pacific Gas & Electric site at Moss Landing. The company released a full root-cause analysis highlighting that the fire was caused by a water leak from an incorrectly installed part

Batteries act like a shock absorber for the power grid by responding in milliseconds. They instantly stabilize fluctuations when solar output drops or when there’s an unexpected outage. They store excess renewable energy for use later, helping us integrate more clean power without risking instability.

What am I concerned about if we would stop all BESS installations in Santa Cruz County? I am concerned this could be a perfect case of “be careful what you ask for.”  

Without the grid support energy storage provides, we might have a very fragile grid.

BloombergNEF (BNEF) predicts a significant increase in global electricity demand, driven largely by the growth of data centers and artificial intelligence. BNEF anticipates a 75% rise in power demand by 2050, with data centers alone accounting for a substantial portion of this growth. The elimination of tax credits for solar and wind generation will further affect this energy gap. Without BESS, we’d need more fossil fuel plants — often natural gas-fired turbines — which take years to build and add greenhouse gas emissions. 

Small modular nuclear is coming, but likely five to 10 years away from market scale. The absence of storage could result in a higher risk of blackouts during extreme weather, which resulted in over 250 lives lost in Texas in 2021.

I am often asked why we aren’t using safer technologies. There are alternatives, but they have limitations, in some cases significant ones. Some of the research being done at PNNL and Sandia includes technologies such as:

• Flow batteries.
•  Zinc and sodium-based chemistries (including sodium-ion).
• Gravity-based systems.
• Non-flammable electrolytes.
• Iron-air.

Some, like certain sodium-ion designs and flow batteries, have promising safety and cost advantages. But most are not yet proven at large scale, as efficient or affordable as lithium-ion today.

Blocking BESS might feel like the safer choice, but it carries its own risks — higher energy costs, more fossil fuel use and less reliability. I feel the real solution is to require the highest safety standards possible for any local projects, even exceeding state minimums when the technology is available.

I often tell people storing energy is never risk-free — but neither is a grid without it. Our challenge is to make informed, measured choices that protect public safety, our climate and our energy future.  

Our community can demonstrate that we not only bounce back from tragedy, but that we can step ahead and lead the way.  

Matthew Paiss has been a Santa Cruz resident since 1983. He studied solar technology at Cabrillo College with careers in the semiconductor industry, fire service and as a technical advisor for two Department of Energy labs. He serves on multiple technical committees related to battery safety, and has provided training to over 9,000 firefighters internationally. He lives in Soquel (in a fully solar home with an electric vehicle and home batteries) with his wife and has two children, two dogs and a cat. He spends his time paddling outrigger canoes, and loves to cook and spend time outdoors with friends.