4 months after an enormous hearth ignited in Monterey County at one of many world’s largest lithium-ion battery storage amenities, Pacific Fuel & Electrical mentioned it intends to reactivate an adjoining battery web site by June to fulfill summer time vitality calls for.
The plan comes over the objections of county officers who requested that each amenities stay offline till the reason for the January hearth in rural Moss Touchdown is set.
“I had hoped that PG&E would take a extra clear and collaborative method in addressing the issues of our surrounding communities, that are nonetheless grappling with the fallout of the most important BESS [battery energy storage system] hearth in historical past,” Monterey County Supervisor Glenn Church wrote on Fb on Could 8.
“Restarting operations earlier than investigations are full and earlier than stronger emergency protocols are in place is disappointing and deeply troubling,” he mentioned.
The PG&E facility is one in all two battery vitality storage programs on the Moss Touchdown energy advanced close to Monterey Bay. The opposite is owned by Texas-based Vistra Corp. The batteries retailer extra vitality generated in the course of the day and launch it into the facility grid throughout occasions of excessive demand, together with night hours.
Each amenities have been offline since Jan. 16, when a Vistra-owned constructing containing 99,000 LG battery modules caught hearth, spewing poisonous gases into the air and prompting the evacuation of some 1,500 individuals.
The adjoining Elkhorn Battery Vitality Storage Facility — which is owned by PG&E and maintained by each the utility firm and Tesla — didn’t burn. However it routinely shut down when its security tools detected the fireplace within the Vistra constructing.
The Elkhorn vitality storage facility consists of 256 stationary Tesla Megapacks — basically delivery container-sized items stuffed with battery modules. The Megapacks, based on PG&E, stand on 33 concrete slaps on the Elkhorn facility.
Writer John Steinbeck’s sardine boat, the Western Flyer, docked within the Moss Touchdown harbor in 2023. The outdated smokestacks from an influence plant close to the harbor could be seen within the background. The facility plant advanced now consists of battery vitality storage amenities.
(Brian van der Brug / Los Angeles Occasions)
In a Could 7 letter to Chris Lopez, chairman of the Monterey County Board of Supervisors, PG&E vice presidents Dave Gabbard and Teresa Alvarado mentioned “Tesla and PG&E have carried out in depth inspection and clean-up” on the Elkhorn Facility and intend to restart it by June 1.
After the fireplace, every of the Megapacks was disassembled and vacuum-cleaned, and environmental monitoring was carried out on and across the web site, Gabbard and Alvarado wrote.
“The Elkhorn Facility, as constructed, permits for environment friendly storage and use of energy,” they wrote. “As summer time approaches, that energy is important to successfully handle the calls for of the California energy grid and to guard PG&E’s clients from energy limitations and associated impacts.”
A PG&E assertion supplied to The Occasions mentioned: “We perceive that the security and well-being of our neighborhood is of utmost significance.” The battery facility, the assertion reads, gives “value financial savings for electrical clients” and helps “help the state’s decarbonization objectives.”
In his Could 8 Fb put up, Church, whose district consists of Moss Touchdown, wrote that the Board of Supervisors on Jan. 22 despatched a letter to PG&E and Vistra requesting that their amenities not return to operation till “the reason for the Vistra hearth, in addition to a earlier hearth on the PG&E battery storage facility, are decided and appropriately addressed.”
That letter, he wrote, additionally requested that each corporations develop “strong emergency response plans — based mostly on a ‘catastrophic worst-case situation’ involving full facility conflagration” for the county and different related companies to evaluate.
Though emergency response plans are required by regulation, he added, present state requirements “are restricted in scope and don’t present the extent of element or realism” that county officers wanted to make sure public security.
“In earlier discussions, PG&E indicated {that a} return to service wouldn’t happen till a lot later this 12 months or past,” Church wrote.
County officers have “expressed concern” concerning the return to service and have reached out to facility operators to make sure emergency plans “adequately present for the security of the encompassing communities and the setting,” Nick Pasculli, a Monterey County spokesman, mentioned in an announcement supplied Thursday.
“Presently, nevertheless, the County feels it’s prudent to encourage PG&E to delay reactivation and proceed to interact in further open, clear dialogue with County officers, first responders, and the residents we collectively serve,” the assertion reads.
In response to a Vistra web site detailing the aftermath of the fireplace, an inner investigation is ongoing, and the reason for the blaze “stays unknown.”
A California Public Utilities Fee investigation into the blaze is also ongoing, Terrie Prosper, a spokesperson for the regulatory company, informed The Occasions.
Vistra’s battery vitality storage system stands on the outdated web site of the Moss Touchdown Energy Plant, a gas-powered facility — initially constructed and operated by PG&E — whose twin smokestacks have towered over the area since 1950. Vistra acquired the plant in 2018 and demolished it to make approach for the battery amenities, leaving the enduring smokestacks behind.
In a February assertion, PG&E famous that the Vistra amenities are “situated adjoining to — however walled off and separate from — PG&E’s Moss Touchdown electrical substation.”
In September 2022, a fireplace ignited in a single Tesla Megapack at PG&E’s Elkhorn facility, 5 months after the battery vitality storage system got here on-line. The blaze, monitored by first responders, was allowed to burn itself out and had seen flames for about six hours, based on an investigation report by Vitality Security Response Group, an unbiased consulting agency.
PG&E, in its letter this month to the county, mentioned the reason for that fireside was water that had entered the Megapack “because of the improper set up of deflagration vent protect panels.” Tesla made fixes to all 256 Megapacks after the blaze, the utility firm wrote.
Ivano Aiello, chair of the San José State College Moss Touchdown Marine Laboratories, conducts soil sampling on the Elkhorn Slough Reserve in January. A battery energy system on the Moss Touchdown Energy Plant, seen within the background, caught hearth days earlier.
(San José State College’s Moss Touchdown Marine Laboratories)
The longer, extra harmful Vistra hearth this 12 months solid a pall over the clear vitality business in California, which lately has turn into extra reliant upon renewable vitality, electrical autos and different battery-powered units as state officers push to dramatically cut back planet-warming greenhouse fuel emissions.
The Vistra blaze prompted calls for extra security laws round battery storage, in addition to extra native management over the place storage websites are situated.
Firefighters allowed the Vistra blaze to burn itself out, citing the risks of dousing lithium-ion battery fires with water, which might trigger harmful chemical reactions. The fireplace, contained to a single constructing, smoldered for a number of days in mid-January.
In late January, scientists at San José State College recorded a dramatic improve in nickel, manganese and cobalt — supplies utilized in lithium-ion batteries — in soil samples on the Elkhorn Slough Reserve, a close-by estuary that’s house to a number of endangered species.
The broken Vistra constructing — stuffed with each burned and unaffected lithium-ion batteries — remained unstable. On Feb. 18, the fireplace reignited and burned for a number of hours. Vistra wrote on its web site that “further cases of smoke and flare-ups are a risk given the character of this case and the injury to the batteries.”
“For the reason that January 16 hearth, Vistra has introduced in a non-public skilled hearth brigade that’s onsite 24/7 to watch the Moss 300 constructing,” the corporate wrote.
That construction, a former turbine constructing, contained a 300-megawatt system made up of about 4,500 cupboards, with every containing 22 particular person battery modules, Meranda Cohn, a Vistra spokesperson, informed The Occasions in an e-mail. Of the 99,000 particular person battery modules within the constructing, she mentioned, about 54,450 burned.
“Demolition on the Moss 300 constructing will start as soon as all batteries have been safely eliminated and discharged, and all particles (concrete, metal, piping) has been faraway from the positioning,” Cohn wrote.
In February, 4 residents who stay close to the power sued Vistra, PG&E and LG Vitality Answer, accusing the businesses of failing to keep up ample hearth security programs.
They alleged that they had been uncovered to poisonous smoke emissions that triggered nosebleeds, complications, respiratory issues and different well being points. Environmental advocate Erin Brockovich is working with regulation agency Singleton Schreiber on the swimsuit.
Occasions workers author Clara Harter contributed to this report.
