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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.
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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

The Moss Landing Fire Is Radicalizing Battery Foes

From Kansas to Brooklyn, the fire is turning battery skeptics into outright opponents.

Texas battery project.
Heatmap Illustration/Getty Images

The symbol of the American battery backlash can be found in the tiny town of Halstead, Kansas.

Angry residents protesting a large storage project proposed by Boston developer Concurrent LLC have begun brandishing flashy yard signs picturing the Moss Landing battery plant blaze, all while freaking out local officials with their intensity. The modern storage project bears little if any resemblance to the Moss Landing facility, which uses older technology,, but that hasn’t calmed down anxious locals or stopped news stations from replaying footage of the blaze in their coverage of the conflict.

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Hotspots

Trump May Approve Transmission Line for Wind Project

And more on the week’s conflicts around renewable energy.

Map of renewable energy conflicts
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1. Carbon County, Wyoming – I have learned that the Bureau of Land Management is close to approving the environmental review for a transmission line that would connect to BluEarth Renewables’ Lucky Star wind project.

  • This is a huge deal. For the last two months it has seemed like nothing wind-related could be approved by the Trump administration. But that may be about to change.
  • The Bureau of Land Management sent local officials an email March 6 with a draft environmental assessment for the transmission line, which is required for the federal government to approve its right-of-way under the National Environmental Policy Act.
  • According to the draft, the entirety of the wind project itself is sited on private property and “no longer will require access to BLM-administered land.”
  • The email suggests this draft environmental assessment may soon be available for public comment, which is standard practice and required under the law to proceed. BLM’s web page for the transmission line now states an approval granting right-of-way for the transmission line may come as soon as this May.
  • We’ve asked BLM for comment on how this complies with Trump’s executive order ending “new or renewed approvals” and “rights of way” for onshore wind projects. We’ll let you know if we hear back.
  • It’s worth noting, however, that BLM last week did something similar with a transmission line that would go to a solar project proposed entirely on private lands. Could private lands become the workaround du jour under Trump?

2. Nantucket County, Massachusetts – Anti-offshore wind advocates are pushing the Trump administration to rescind air permits issued to Avangrid for New England Wind 1 and 2, the same approval that was ripped away from Atlantic Shores offshore wind farm last Friday.

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Q&A

What’s the Deal with Battery Storage Regulation?

A conversation with Nikhil Kumar of GridLab

Nikhil Kumar, program director at GridLab
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Today’s sit-down is with Nikhil Kumar, a program director at GridLab and an expert in battery storage safety and regulation. Kumar’s folks reached out to me after learning I was writing about Moss Landing and wanted to give his honest and open perspective on how the disaster is impacting the future of storage development in the U.S. Let’s dive in!

The following is an abridged and edited version of our conversation.

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