Battery Farms and Claverack’s Moratorium

By John Bradley

In July, the Claverack Town Board extended the moratorium on considering the proposal for a battery farm near the Town Garage site on Schoolhouse Road. The Town of Claverack has retained a consultant to advise on the current proposal before it. We expect the town will be sharing information from their consultant in the near future.

The Town of Carmel also passed a similar moratorium concerning a proposed battery farm in Mahopac. The proposal caused controversy in the community. The June Sierra Club Mid-Hudson newsletter reported on the Mahopac proposal, the moratorium and included a broader discussion of battery farm safety. 

The Sierra Club article was written by Nivo Rovedo, the Mid-Hudson Chapter Energy Chair. It provides useful background on large scale battery storage practices in the US and suggests that the community’s safety concerns appear to be unfounded. Read this article in the Mid Hudson News explaining some oppositions to the proposal.

The following are several paragraphs from Mr. Rovedo’s Sierra Club article. It includes a link to the NYSERDA fact sheet on energy storage regulation and safety. This article is a good orientation to battery farms issues, which is why we decided to include excerpts in our newsletter. To read the entire article, refer to the Sierra Club’s June 2024 newsletter here.

“Now there’s an Objection to Battery Farms

By Nivo Rovedo

… Following is some background on large scale battery storage:

The typical utility scale battery storage systems are large collections of lithium batteries;

They come in freight container-sized modules that are connected to achieve large storage capacity. Most commercial, large-scale systems are lithium based, but there is a great deal of development going on in battery technology, with cheaper and possibly safer alternatives to lithium, such as iron oxide or sulfur systems, currently being tested. These are high power systems. An example is an Arizona battery installation that can store 1,200MWh of energy, or enough power to serve 244,000 homes for four hours a day. You can read more about this installation here. Tesla has been offering its PowerWall for residential systems for over 10 years. These units are much smaller, of course, in the range of 15KWh per module.

These utility scale battery systems are very important in the transition to renewable power generation because they serve as a solution to “intermittency” – when there is no sun or no wind there is no renewable power generation. Battery systems also serve as a solution on the other end of the spectrum – they capture excess energy production when supply exceeds demand. Available large scale storage mitigates the loss of excess power generation, and at night or when there is little wind, utility customers can draw on stored renewable energy rather than rely on highly polluting, greenhouse gas

emitting peaker plants which run on fossil fuels. There are additional benefits related to grid stability and resilience that batteries can also provide. Therefore, there has been an effort to increase large capacity storage nationwide, and in New York State, the Climate Leadership and Community Protection Act, established in 2019, set goals of the deployment of 1,500 MW of energy storage by 2025, and 3,000 MW by 2030. The recent heat wave across the nation is an example as to why we need to migrate from our reliance on burning fossil fuels to renewable, clean energy. The greenhouse gases we are emitting are effectively burning ourselves and our fellow creatures.

The concerns voiced at the Town of Carmel town board meeting are unfounded. The battery systems do not emit pollutants, and the only noise is from cooling systems. Fire can be a hazard in extreme conditions, but this is a risk that can be managed like so many similar risks. The units have their own fire suppression systems. Moreover, there are science-based guidelines to reduce risk. The New York State Energy Research and Development Agency (NYSERDA) has provided these guidelines for municipalities to make local laws for such installations to protect people and property. I recall attending a NYSERDA-sponsored meeting for local government leaders well before 2019 that was proactively anticipating the need for large scale battery storage and already putting forward such guidelines. These and many other informational resources can be found at NYSERDA's website.

Developers who propose battery installations will typically provide special training to local fire companies for handling such conflagrations, at no cost. I do not mean to minimize the fire danger, but I also do not want to blow it out of proportion. We have gas line and gas compressor stations all over the country, also a fire/explosion hazard, that we manage to accommodate and live with.

In the case of the proposed installation in Mahopac, there may not have been enough

outreach to the community to help the residents understand the situation and possibly allay some fears. It would appear from the article that the siting was ideal and danger minimal: It was reported that ‘Scott Connuck, senior project developer for East Point Energy, appeared before the planning board last fall to present the project and seek site plan approval. Town planning consultant Pat Cleary noted this was the first time the town had entertained such a project which meets the town code’s initial zoning requirements. Connuck called the Miller Road property ideal for such a project. “In our view, this site is uniquely situated for this type of project and is the best use for this site. We are adjacent to electrical infrastructure. This site has the transmission lines that we need. In addition, it is in a region of critical need. The property is isolated. We are using only a fraction of that property and it’s in the center. It will be out of sight, not heard, out of mind.”’

Could folks have been misinformed about the project and the dangers? Fossil fuel interests have been known to masquerade as grassroots organizations to pass out false or misleading information, heightening fears, to halt any projects related to renewable energy and a threat to their industry. We see this often in offshore wind farm proposals. The article does not provide any indication one way or the other on this. There is probably some NIMBYism involved as well, particularly associated with unfounded property value concerns.

There are admittedly trade-offs in every solution to the climate catastrophe we are in. There are always negative aspects, and no fix is perfect from all points of view. But it is quite clear we are killing ourselves and our well-being and the beauty of our planet with the burning of fossil fuels. Battery farms could help us with that.”

Source: The Newsletter of the Mid-Hudson Sierra Club Chapter, JUNE 2024 VOL. 56 ISSUE 6