Sacramento Report: Lawmakers Want to Cut Red Tape to Ramp up Battery Storage  

Earlier this week I joined a group of energy experts and state lawmakers at a battery storage site in the Coachella Valley to learn how California is building out renewable energy systems and what needs to happen to speed up that process. 

Assemblymember Buffy Wicks, D-Oakland, was holding a hearing of the Assembly Select Committee on Permitting Reform to figure out how to streamline permits for renewable energy transmission and generation. The Desert Peak battery storage project in Palm Springs, by NextEra Energy Resources, was the first stop. 

It’s silhouetted against the San Bernardino Mountains, surrounded by a field of wind turbines and next to a Southern California Edison substation that draws power from the Palo Verde nuclear generating station in Arizona and renewable energy projects in the desert. Rows of sheds house hundreds of lithium-ion batteries that store power and then feed it into the grid.  

You may have heard about battery storage closer to home, and probably not in a favorable light. An Escondido battery storage facility caught fire in September, our MacKenzie Elmer reported, prompting evacuations and closures of nearby schools. Lithium-ion batteries generate heat through the energy they conduct. If that builds up because the batteries are overcharged or in a hot environment, they can go up in flames. 

The Escondido event was one of several such fires in San Diego County over the past year. In May a blaze at a battery storage site in Chula Vista burned for two and a half weeks, leaving San Diegans anxious about the safety of the high-powered batteries. The previous September a Valley Center energy storage facility caught fire.   

Officials with Escondido Fire Department and San Diego County Air Pollution Control District said air quality monitors didn’t pick up any dangerous levels of toxic pollutants. But residents were wary of the risks, and the county Board of Supervisors adopted new rules for approving and operating the facilities, but voted against a moratorium on them.  

Energy storage experts are well aware of the bad press, and point out differences between the San Diego battery storage sites and newer, mega-storage facilities like Desert Peak. 

It’s much bigger, with an ultimate capacity of 700 megawatts, enough to power about 140,000 homes, according to the National Renewable Energy Laboratory. That compares to the Escondido plant at 30 megawatts. 

Nonetheless, the new facilities are safer, with better fire protections, said Scott Murtishaw, executive director of the California Energy Storage Alliance. 

“The facility in Escondido was installed in 2017,” he said. “That’s ancient technology.”  

Escondido fire officials were “keeping their eye on the SDG&E facility because it was considered ‘old’ by technological advancement standards in the battery industry,” Elmer reported. Failures of grid-scale batteries dropped by 97 percent between 2018 and 2023, she wrote. 

But lawmakers and energy industry officials recognize that fire risk is just part of the barrier to scaling up battery storage to meet California’s climate goals. There’s concern that solar and wind projects and battery storage sites pose burdens to low-income and rural communities that already face high pollution and industrial activity. And converting traditional farms to solar farms often sparks opposition.  

“Especially in rural areas some folks have a reaction to turning agricultural lands to solar energy,” said Pedro Villegas, executive director for political and regulatory affairs for NextEra.  

The state aims to reach net carbon zero – the point at which the amount of greenhouse gasses that humans emit equals the amount removed from the atmosphere – by 2045. In 2022 the California Air Resources Board released a plan to get there. San Diego County created its own “decarbonization framework” to cut local carbon emissions. 

But lawmakers say efforts to wean off fossil fuels aren’t moving fast enough.  

“There’s a huge chasm between the things we say are our priorities and what we are actually delivering in the state” on renewable energy and climate action, said Cottie Petrie-Norris, D- Irvine. “The number one thing we need to do to accelerate the pace is permit reform.” 

On the National Front 

Donald Trump’s “first buddy” Elon Musk acknowledges that climate change is happening and likely to cause problems, the Union Tribune’s Michael Smolens writes. But Trump has declared it a hoax and promised to “drill, baby, drill” when he’s back in the White House. 

Of course Musk has skin in the game since his “Tesla companies that make electric vehicles, solar panels and energy storage batteries would benefit from greater focus on solar power,” Smolens writes. But will he prevail over Trump’s declaration of war against climate policies that California has championed, including energy efficient and electric vehicles? 

In the coming weeks I’ll take a closer look at how California leaders plan to Trump-proof the state on issues including energy and climate, healthcare, reproductive rights and immigration. Gov. Gavin Newsom, Attorney General Rob Bonta and many lawmakers are gearing up for these battles. But they’ll also need to reach detente on matters such as federal disaster aid and infrastructure funding. More on that to come! 

End of Life Forum  

State Sen. Catherine Blakespear will hold a panel on medical aid in dying on Dec. 4, to discuss options available to patients with terminal diagnoses. Earlier this year Blakespear proposed a bill that would expand assisted suicide options for the sickest patients, including those with dementia. She withdrew it after she faced pushback on the plan, stating “there is a reluctance from many around me to take up this discussion, and the future is unclear.” Check here for more information or to receive the Zoom link to watch a live stream.  

Correction: This post had been updated to correct the date for the forum Blakespear is holding. It’s happening on Dec. 4.