🔒Battery storage issues ignite conflict

Massachusetts’ ambitious green energy initiatives are making some local officials see red. 

While most people favor slashing greenhouse gas emissions in theory, local officials must face the complicated realities of implementing these goals. One newfangled challenge: battery storage. 

Energy generated from wind, water, and solar power is typically stored in battery energy storage systems. As developers look for new places to install these systems in Massachusetts, a growing number of towns are resisting these facilities, citing safety and noise problems. 

The state needs these towns’ cooperation, as they have power to decide where these systems can be placed. Without towns’ blessings, it could be almost impossible for Massachusetts to achieve its lofty goal of cutting emissions in half by the end of the decade.  

Some towns are trying to block installations. In Wendell, for example, a group called No Assault and Batteries, launched a petition drive last December to demand the governor halt all industrial-scale battery system installations. Residents worry the project would ravage this bucolic area. Nearly a dozen acres of trees would  be demolished, they say, and the facilities’ noisy air conditioners would disrupt wildlife.

In Hadley, planning board members expressed concern in March about the environmental hazards of approving a five-megawatt project submitted by Zero-Point Development of Worcester. These storage systems contain lithium-ion batteries, which occasionally catch fire and release toxic gasses. Members worried battery fires can’t be easily extinguished and chemicals used for firefighting could result in contaminating the local water supply. 

In Staten Island, New York, meanwhile, two state lawmakers proposed legislation to ban these storage units in residential areas and school zones. “At the end of the day, the terms ‘classroom’ and ‘blast-radius’ should never be in the same sentence,” one lawmaker told StatenIslander.org.

Battery fires from these systems have occurred in places like New York, California, and Arizona. 

These events helped local officials improve emergency response plans and detail how to respond to battery explosions and fires. 

Battery storage systems are safer than ever because of technological advances, according to the Electric Power Research Institute. Such fires are rare, it added.

While Wendell tried to bar battery installations in 2021 and 2022,  the state attorney general said the town’s proposed bylaws violated state law. The ban could not be justified because the town’s objections were not grounded in articulated evidence of public health concerns.

Massachusetts is challenging towns’ efforts to regulate these systems. State law bars towns from unreasonable regulation of structures helping collect solar energy. 

Now, developers and attorneys are working with government officials to reconcile the law with public safety concerns. Fire risks are being examined, along with acceptable ways to decommission expired batteries, which usually last for only 20 years. 

With model policies, officials hope alternative energy will be welcomed into communities rather than ignite political fights.