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Hotspots

A Battery Ban, Burning Man, and Lots More Yelling

The week’s biggest fights around renewable energy

Map of U.S.
Heatmap Illustration

1. San Diego County, California – The battery backlash just got stronger after the city of Escondido, California, indefinitely banned permits to the entire sector in reaction to a battery fire last month.

  • Last week, the city council enacted a 45-day moratorium on permits to construction and operation of battery energy storage systems, or BESS. The moratorium will impact AES Corporation’s Seguro storage project, as well as at least one more pending project, according to staff testimony at the city council meeting on the matter.
  • But for AES and anyone else who hopes this ends quickly, some bad news: Staff also testified it’ll take much longer than 45 days to prepare a report outlining next steps due to the outstanding government workload – and that’ll just be the idea generation phase of the city’s response. A 10-month moratorium was discussed as a potential next step.
  • “I don’t think any of us up here are adamantly opposed to battery energy storage systems,” the city’s Republican mayor Dane White said at the meeting. “However, it has to be done the right way.”

2. Waldo County, Maine – The potential first floating offshore wind assembly site in America is now one step further in the permitting process, after Maine’s Department of Transportation released a pre-application alternatives analysis required for federal environmental reviews.

  • The Maine DOT report defends the selection of Sears Island for the project. We previously scooped that this decision has serious legal risks.
  • Nevertheless, the state believes that it’s a better site than Mack Point, an existing energy logistics port nearby. According to the report, the Mack Point alternative would cost more and “limit any future plans for growth.”
  • “[It] presents problematic design features that greatly reduce its operational functionality and effectively preclude its use,” the report stated.
  • This effectively begins the state and federal environmental permitting process for the Sears Island port project. On its end, the state is also preparing a broader draft environmental review.

3. Dickinson County, Kansas – This one county may be a bellwether for future problems in Kansas, a state with many existing wind farms — and even more potential — but also a lot of opposition.

  • Activists stormed a community meeting late last week on deciding whether to move forward with Enel Green Power’s 334-megawatts Hope Ridge wind farm. If county planners reject the project, it’ll potentially come with a two-year moratorium on wind. Enel has several operating wind farms in Kansas, including Diamond Vista, which is in the adjacent Marion County. (Marion’s got its own moratorium now, too).
  • Despite existing generation, Dickinson County is one of the riskier places in the United States for new renewable energy development, according to Heatmap Pro’s analytics, thanks to its demographic, economic, and geographic similarities to other opposed counties.
  • At the top of the meeting, Enel project developer Jon Beck laid out a laundry list of reasons to build the project including jobs and tax revenue. “This area has been really favorable for a lot of reasons, and that’s why we continue here,” Beck said.
  • But while some in attendance supported the development, lots of testimony opposing the project stretched the hearing beyond the five-hour mark. (Pray for me, I listened back to the tape).
  • There’s a follow-up meeting this week. And Enel clearly takes this development seriously, because they sent me a lengthy statement about the opposition to Hope Ridge.
  • “Throughout this process, we’ve worked to show the Dickinson County community that wind power has been a huge success story for Kansas, bringing billions of dollars in economic impact largely targeted to rural areas,” the statement read. “Our landowners and community partners at Diamond Vista, just down the road, have seen how our project has provided new jobs, better roads, and more local funding over the last six years.”
  • It continued: “We understand many people in Dickinson County have concerns, but we also have a lot of supporters in the county — including our landowners — who are counting on us to make the case for this project. We hope to earn the support of the Planning Commission this week."

4. Washoe County, Nevada – The company behind the Burning Man festival will be acquiring nearby geothermal energy leases, in a settlement resolving litigation that had the high-profile naturalist escape challenging access to a renewable energy resource.

  • Burning Man will purchase the leases from power company Ormat, which will then in turn help the festival organizations turn that land into a conservation area, according to an announcement of the settlement.
  • This may effectively kill Ormat’s geothermal exploration project in the area after local officials also revoked a crucial drilling permit.

Here’s what else we’re watching right now…

In North Carolina, the Kerr Lake Solar project proposed by Cypress Creek Renewables is facing its own apparent local onslaught at community meetings.

In California, Capstone and Eurowind Energy are seeking permission to build a long-duration battery storage facility in Alameda County.

In New Jersey, a coalition of shore towns and opposition groups fighting the EDF-Shell Atlantic Shores offshore wind farm have issued a new missive criticizing state financial benefits to the project.

In New York, the town of Oyster Bay looks like it’ll be extending its moratorium on BESS for at least another six months.

In Pennsylvania, a Pivot Energy solar farm also has some local organizing in the way.

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Spotlight

Wind Farm Trump Killed Derails a Major Transmission Line

The collateral damage from the Lava Ridge wind project might now include a proposed 285-mile transmission line initially approved by federal regulators in the 1990s.

The western United States.
Heatmap Illustration/Library of Congress, Getty Images

The same movement that got Trump to kill the Lava Ridge wind farm Trump killed has appeared to derail a longstanding transmission project that’s supposed to connect sought-after areas for wind energy in Idaho to power-hungry places out West.

The Southwest Intertie Project-North, also known as SWIP-N, is a proposed 285-mile transmission line initially approved by federal regulators in the 1990s. If built, SWIP-N is supposed to feed power from the wind-swept plains of southern Idaho to the Southwest, while shooting electrons – at least some generated from solar power – back up north into Idaho from Nevada, Utah, and Arizona. In California, regulators have identified the line as crucial for getting cleaner wind energy into the state’s grid to meet climate goals.

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Hotspots

Solar Threats, Quiet Cancellations, and One Nice Thing

The week’s most important news around renewable project fights.

Solar Threats, Quiet Cancellations, and One Nice Thing
Heatmap Illustration/Getty Images

1. Western Nevada — The Esmeralda 7 solar mega-project may be no more.

  • Last night I broke the news that the Bureau of Land Management quietly updated the permitting website for Esmeralda 7 to reflect project cancelation. BLM did so with no public statement and so far, none of the companies involved — NextEra, Invenergy, ConnectGen, and more — have said anything about it.
  • Esmeralda 7 was all set to receive its record of decision as soon as July, until the Trump administration froze permitting for solar projects on federal lands. The roughly 6.2 gigawatt mega-project had been stalled ever since.
  • It’s unclear if this means all of the components within Esmeralda 7 are done, or if facilities may be allowed to continue through permitting on a project-by-project basis. Judging from the messages I’ve fielded this morning so far, confusion reigns supreme here.

2. Washoe County, Nevada – Elsewhere in Nevada, the Greenlink North transmission line has been delayed by at least another month.

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Q&A

How Data Center Developers Are Navigating the Battery Fire Freakout

A conversation with Spencer Hanes of EnerVenue

Spencer.
Heatmap Illustration

Today’s conversation is with Spencer Hanes, vice president of international business development for long-duration battery firm EnerVenue and a veteran in clean energy infrastructure development. I reached out to Hanes for two reasons: One, I wanted to gab about solutions, for once, and also because he expressed an interest in discussing how data center companies are approaching the media-driven battery safety panic sweeping renewable energy development. EnerVenue doesn’t use lithium-ion batteries – it uses metal-hydrogen, which Hanes told me may have a much lower risk of thermal runaway (a.k.a. unstoppable fire).

I really appreciated our conversation because, well, it left me feeling like battery alternatives might become an easy way for folks to dodge the fire freakout permeating headlines and local government hearing rooms.

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