Moss Landing battery fire ignites frustration, throws skepticism over another battery facility eyed for Santa Cruz County

As fire continued to burn at the world’s largest lithium-ion battery storage facility in Moss Landing on Friday, state Sen. John Laird sat in a nearby trailer with state and local officials watching live drone footage of the fire continuing to flare up and consume more batteries.

“It’s just tragic,” Laird, among the leading environmentalist legislators in Sacramento, told Lookout. “The goal of everyone being safe, and the goal of getting off fossil fuels and having a clean energy grid, are in conflict with this situation.” 

By Friday, less than 24 hours after the fire began, evacuation orders remained in place and answers of who, what, why and how were elusive, but state and local leaders throughout this environmentally minded Central Coast enclave let out a chorus of frustration and disappointment. All demanded accountability and acknowledged the skepticism ahead for this technology meant to clean the air, not fill it with toxic chemicals. 

As Laird hung up the phone, Assemblymember Dawn Addis, whose district stretches from San Luis Obispo into Live Oak, gathered with reporters and news cameras across Highway 1 and called for accountability from Vistra Corp., the Texas-based company that owns the facility. Vistra operates three battery structures on the property; although only one was burning, Addis demanded all three remain shut down indefinitely. 

“We cannot see another battery storage fire ever in the future of California and we need to absolutely make sure that that never happens again in Moss Landing,” said Addis, flanked by Monterey County Supervisor Glenn Church. “I’m looking for that commitment. We were told this facility is safe. Clearly there’s issues here. We can never go back to those conversations. We have to go forward and know this is never going to happen again in California.” 

Assembly Speaker Robert Rivas, who represents part of South County, issued a statement calling the fire “a catastrophe and I expect accountability.” 

Battery storage has been one of the largest question marks hanging over the global clean energy revolution. While oil and gas can be stored in physical barrels over long periods of time for future use, the electricity produced by solar and wind power is more elusive. If it is to be used at nighttime or during windless days, that energy has to be stored in batteries, making facilities like Vistra’s at Moss Landing crucial in moving our electricity grid off of fossil fuel dependency.  So far, lithium-ion batteries are the best science has given us at utility scale, but they are also prone to overheating and combustion issues. 

The fire marks the fourth, and by far the largest, emergency response incident at the address in less than four years. Battery packs smoked up and triggered the fire suppression system twice in five months at the Vistra site between 2021 and 2022. Then, in September 2022, an adjacent battery facility owned by Tesla and Pacific Gas & Electric caught fire, shutting down Highway 1 and forcing a shelter-in-place order. 

While those incidents triggered an emergency response and damaged a handful of lithium-ion battery packs, this week’s blaze is of an entirely different scale. The Vistra operation is broken into three distinct structures: Moss 300, Moss 100 and Moss 350, the numbers indicating how many megawatts each facility can produce. The fire is burning through Moss 300. 

Since throwing water on a flaming lithium-ion battery creates a dangerous reaction, officials said the plan is to just let it burn out. Brad Watson, Vistra’s director of community affairs, offered no estimate on how long the fire could burn, but told reporters Friday that when the fire settles, he expects Moss 300 to “be heavily damaged, if not destroyed.” 

The fire sparked one month after Santa Cruz County received an application for a $200 million, 200-megawatt battery storage facility in South County, just outside of Watsonville. The project, submitted by Massachusetts-based New Leaf Energy, is in its nascent stages and is expected to come before the Santa Cruz County Board of Supervisors for approval later this year. Local officials are already saying the Moss Landing fire will make it a tougher sell. 

“There’s going to be a high level of scrutiny, especially in light of this disaster,” District 3 Supervisor Justin Cummings told Lookout. “I’m really going to be focused on that. This is the tightrope we walk with trying to move into a green age where we move away from fossil fuels.” 

District 1 Supervisor Manu Koenig called it “crazy timing” that a fire broke out just as the county is starting to consider a battery facility of its own. He said the fact that the most recent fire is the fourth incident since late 2021 is concerning. 

“It seems less like a risk that maybe a fire will happen and more like an inevitability that a fire at these facilities will happen,” Koenig told Lookout. “New technology has risks, and as public officials we have to quantify those risks and determine whether or not it’s worth it. We’re now seeing that the risks associated with these large battery facilities might be higher than we expected. I’m definitely going to be scrutinizing the data.” 

District 4 Supervisor Felipe Hernandez, whose district would host the 200-megawatt facility, did not return Lookout’s request for comment. 

County spokesperson Jason Hoppin said a full vetting of the Moss Landing fire will be critical before the county commits to considering a battery storage facility within its borders. 

“We need to see the results of the investigation into this facility and to be convinced adequate safeguards are in place to reduce the chance of a similar event — to as close to zero as possible — before making any decisions on conditions for a future facility,” Hoppin said in a text message. 

Watsonville City Councilmember Jimmy Dutra told Lookout he just found out about the proposed battery storage facility, saying that he and other city officials were caught off-guard upon learning about the project and will be doing more research. 

Since the project is just outside city limits, the Watsonville City Council will have no say. However, Dutra said he wants to make sure there will be proper management of the battery storage facility to avoid a situation like Moss Landing. 

The safety features and design of the battery storage facility proposed for South County are different from the Moss Landing battery facility, said Max Christian, project lead for New Leaf Energy. The batteries will be stored in steel containers that will have heat monitoring and fire-suppression systems, he said. Each container will be separated by several feet. 

If a battery were to catch on fire at the storage facility, the smoke woiuld not disperse into the air, he said; rather, it will remain inside the container. The batteries are designed to comply with California’s safety guidelines and legislation. 

New Leaf is proactively working with local fire agencies to discuss best safety practices as the project continues, Christian said. He added that the company will take what’s happening in Moss Landing as a learning tool when it comes to improving safety standards for the Watsonville project as more information becomes available. 

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