Editor’s note: Minutes after this story posted, a 30-megawatt SDG&E battery storage facility on Enterprise Street in Escondido caught fire. The city of Escondido issued a mandatory evacuation order for the surrounding businesses in the area and the local fire department was sent to the scene. In a statement, SDG&E spokesman Anthony Wagner said the fire erupted in one of 24 battery containers on site. There are no reported injuries. The company will conduct a “thorough review of the event to determine the cause of the incident,” Wagner wrote.
After a couple of fires at renewable energy battery storage sites in San Diego, a growing number of leaders in the county want to suspend the building of new ones.
But that would undermine the county’s soon-to-be and legally binding commitment to run on 100 percent renewable energy by 2045 via a new Climate Action Plan. Unless the county makes enormous investments in nuclear or geothermal power, sources of power that don’t create planet-warming greenhouse gases, batteries are key to keeping the lights and A/C on when the sun goes down.
The County Board of Supervisors will decide on Sept. 11 whether to ban building battery storage until stricter fire safety restrictions are in place. Such a moratorium, pushed by Republican Supervisor Jim Desmond, could mean no new battery projects for at least another two years as county planners come up with standards. It also makes it harder for the county to transition away from fossil fuels because batteries store the sun and wind’s energy at night when it’s in high demand.
The upcoming vote also puts a spotlight on Democrat Supervisor Terra Lawson-Remer as she reckons with constituents in her district who are frightened of fire but also expect her to lead the charge on the energy transition – all ahead of her reelection bid this November. Lawson-Remer, who is the vice chair of San Diego Community Power, a public power company built to execute the county’s renewable energy goals, hasn’t clearly said what she wants to do yet.
“We are entering new territory with the construction of these battery storage facilities, and we need to move forward in a way that protects our communities while meeting our climate goals. I’m eager for County staff to come back with their recommendations,” she said in a statement to Voice on Thursday.
Meanwhile, Escondido’s City Council passed a resolution late last month stating that battery storage projects are risky and bring no economic value to the communities they’re in. While written to broadly capture any battery storage project, the move coincides with an upcoming county decision of whether to approve a proposed and now highly controversial battery storage project called Seguro Energy Storage developed by AES. It has the potential to power 240,000 homes, but the timing of its development could not have been worse.
Two large battery projects caught fire recently elsewhere in the region: One at Gateway Energy Storage in Otay Mesa earlier this year, and another in September of 2023 at the Valley Center Energy Storage Facility operated by Terra-Gen. These chemical fires are notoriously difficult to put out and typically can’t be doused by conventional firefighting methods. That stirred fear and opposition in Escondido, which doesn’t have any power to block the Seguro project being built just outside city limits on county land.
Escondido Councilmember Christian Garcia, who serves on the board of Clean Energy Alliance, a renewable public power company serving North County that would otherwise be supportive of battery storage proliferation, was among those who voted for the resolution.
“I’m not opposed to battery storage facilities. It’s this one specifically,” Garcia told Voice. He said he believes the location of the project, near a small smattering of ranch homes, could impact home insurance rates due to the potential fire hazard and that the land could be used for a business that adds more economic value to the community.
Tim Wolf, a spokesperson for AES and Seguro’s developer, argued with that. The company says the project would generate $5.8 million in local property tax revenue every year, and more than half would go to Escondido schools. Another $140,000 would go to Palomar Health and $370,000 to San Marcos Fire Department.
Escondido’s resolution has little effect on whether Seguro can move forward. That’s up to the county Board of Supervisors, which could opt to allow any battery projects currently in development to move forward, even if the board chooses to prohibit building any new ones for now. Still, AES is concerned they’ll eventually be out of compliance with whatever new guidelines the county comes up with if they build their project now.
“We want to be consistent with development standards and what communities want to see. We’re really in a tough situation where we want to be good partners,” said Corinne Lytle Bonine, director of permitting at AES.
There is another option. Battery developers can opt to go around all the pushback and local regulations and get their project approved by the state via the California Energy Commission. Only one renewable energy project made any headway on that route, the Fountain Wind project in Shasta County. Lytle Bonine said that route can be more cumbersome in terms of the amount of analysis companies have to provide and pass through the state’s experts.
“We’d like to get community buy-in,” she said.
AES’ desired location is on an old horse ranch just outside of central Escondido. A small subdivision, wineries and a handful of business catering to animal care surround the perimeter. It’s a good location, the company says, because it’s near a large substation which batteries need to be close to in order to connect to the grid.
San Diego Gas and Electric, an investor-owned utility, operates another battery storage project immediately adjacent to the substation in an industrial section of town. But SDG&E isn’t in the hot seat with the community, AES is.
To try and appease the community, AES changed its proposal substantially. It reduced the battery project’s size by 20 percent to make room for larger setbacks between it and the nearest home. The company also agreed to bury power lines connecting the blocks of lithium-ion battery chemistry to the grid underground.
Dozens in the community still want Seguro dead. A Facebook group called “Stop the Seguro Battery Energy Storage System in Escondido” feeds news about lithium battery fires and other communities opposing battery projects across the country to its 350 members.
Joe Rowley, a former Sempra executive who built gas-fired and renewable projects across North America, says he’s against the Seguro project because it’s too close to homes and says large battery projects like Seguro should be placed 1,000 feet away from existing residences.
“Batteries are not going away. They’re needed. But what’s missing here is any kind of recognition in zoning regulations that these are a whole different animal and need to be addressed specifically,” Rowley said.
Lytle Bonine, director of permitting at AES, said a 1,000-foot setback from homes would make it very difficult if not impossible to build energy storage projects anywhere in the county.
“Developing a setback on a use like battery storage from residences that is also an important component of residential development is overly burdensome, illogical, and inconsistent with the intent of battery storage to bring electrical generation closer to where it is needed most during peak hours,” she said.
The public power companies San Diego formed to reach its 100 percent renewable energy goals don’t want a slow-down.
“A moratorium would be completely counterintuitive not only to San Diego Community Power, but the county of San Diego itself,” said Jen Lebron, a spokesperson for San Diego Community Power. “It makes it nearly impossible for us to meet our local (renewable energy) procurement goals.”
San Diego Community Power and Clean Energy Alliance bill ratepayers in the communities that sign-up to be a part of each company for the energy they consume, and use that money to buy and build new renewable power. Lebron said a moratorium would create a “chilling effect” on energy companies that want to build in San Diego County.
“If we lose those development dollars we lose clean energy, jobs and enormous tax revenue,” Lebron said.
Greg Wade, CEO of Clean Energy Alliance, said if the county stops accepting applications for battery storage, it would hinder the development of newer technologies that aren’t as risky as lithium ion.
“We simply cannot hope to achieve our local, regional and state goals of 100 percent renewable energy future without battery storage,” Wade wrote in an email.
What does this company have planned for mitigation when the building catches fire and people and animals have to breathe in the toxic fumes like we are right now from the fire in Escondido? Doesn’t seem very environmentally concious to let the chemicals from the batteries get emitted into the air in the communities where they reside.
Not only is the planned Seguro Battery Plant too close to homes, it will also be just 1600 feet from Palomar Hospital which is a Trauma 2 hospital, along with an entire medical community that moved their offices next to Palomar. The entire stretch of Citracado between Auto Pkwy & Enterprise is medical offices & labratories, plus the Stone Brewery location. The medical district serves Escondido, San Marcos & surrounding areas. There is the potential for Palomar & the surrounding medical buildings to evacuate in an instant & remain inoperable for a month or more. Even a week endangers the lives of patients seeking medical care from any of the facilities.
It seems like there are a number of possibilities. Require a 500 ft paved zone around any battery facility and an on site fire hydrant.
Require that any battery storage facility will have a fire extinguishing system in every compartment, capable of extinguishing any fire in that compartment. Due to the known problem of thermal run away with LI batteries, require that if one compartment’s fire system activates then all systems in that bay will activate.
Go to the battery storage companies and say to them, “LI batteries are known to be unstable, these requirements are the result of fires in our communities. They could easily get more strict. If you don’t want to operate under these restrictions, change the chemistry of your battery storage systems to one that is more stable.”
I agree that much more robust fire mitigation and supression measures at these battery-storage sites are needed. But to be clear, water has limited impact on a lithium-ion battery fire, so fire hydrants should not be considered an adequate fire-supression system at these facilities.
Another option, though not without it’s own setbacks would be to allow only Sodium Ion batteries in BESS systems like this. They can’t store as much energy, but they’re also significantly more thermally stable, making runaway much less likely.
We use salt silicate batteries for our off grid battery storage (in SD County). They are bigger, but non-flammabke, non-toxic and non-explosive, has a similar lifetime, and a significantly wider range of operating temperatures.
Water is used to keep the other battery bays cool so they don’t catch fire as well.
Ok, but you wouldn’t want to accomplish that with a fire hydrant. That would require an active coolant system built into the facility to prevent various components from overheating.
It really makes me wonder who is designing these systems such that they can even get to the point of thermal runaway? And how do they even allow flames outside of a battery module such that it starts other modules on fire and it burns through the container? That’s just hideously bad design.
Unfortunately SDG&E benefits from these failures because they WANT these battery systems far far away from residents and energy users. They want them far away so they can justify their record high and profit generating distribution/transmission fees. Too convenient this fire happens the weekend before the Board of Supervisors meet on the subject of BESS safety.
Pretty simple solution. Eos Energy’s zinc-based long-duration energy storage (LDES) batteries offer several advantages over lithium-ion batteries:
1. Safety: Zinc batteries are non-flammable and less prone to thermal runaway compared to lithium-ion, reducing fire risks.
2. Lower Cost: Zinc is more abundant and less expensive than lithium, which can result in lower overall production costs, especially as demand for lithium increases.
3. Longer Duration: Eos’ zinc batteries are designed for long-duration energy storage (up to 12 hours or more), making them suitable for grid-scale applications, while lithium-ion batteries typically provide shorter-duration storage.
4. Wide Operating Temperature Range: Zinc batteries are more resilient in extreme temperatures, performing well without needing expensive cooling systems that lithium-ion batteries often require.
5. Environmentally Friendly: Zinc is more eco-friendly than lithium, and Eos’ batteries are designed with recyclability in mind, lowering their environmental impact.
6. No Supply Chain Constraints: Zinc’s availability is more stable compared to lithium, which is facing supply chain challenges as demand increases for electric vehicles and other applications.
These benefits make Eos’ zinc LDES batteries particularly attractive for large-scale energy storage solutions.
I’m with Higgins. Use something like concrete tilt up concrete construction to create fire proof cells each with its own fire suppression system. Each cell would contain a small percentage of the facilities capacity and would automatically be disconnected leaving the rest of the facility functional during a accident.
Our government should be establishing Green Hydrogen facilities, not Lithium Ion battery facilities, to store excess solar power.
https://www.acciona.com/green-hydrogen/?_adin=11734293023
Large battery storage projects pose a danger to our communities. They should be banned now. I’m a big supporter of mini-electrical grids but our engineers are trying to shoehorn an energy storage system to support solar farms.
The way to develop small electrical power grids is to begin with natural gas, that burns 50% cleaner than other fossil fuels, and transition to small nuclear power plants. This will give the time for nuclear engineering to reach it’s full potential. Solar farms destroy natural resources, wildlife, and consume valuable land.
These battery systems will ultimately fail or need replacement further decreasing their return on investment. I welcome mini and micro grids, but not at the expense of the environment.
Perhaps the author of this article is unaware that AES is planning on placing their Seguaro BESS installation on a property that is bisected by a private road (Milpas Drive) that serves many homes. Milpas Drive is the residnets only way out! The AES plan palces BESS containers a mere 30 to 40 feet away from both sides of the road and the same distance from many of the residents property lines. When AES experiences a fire such as what is occuring in Escondido, those residents, and their livestock, will be exposed to the gases being released as they attempt to evacuate… that is if they are able to evacuate and the fire department is not using that single egress point to fight the fire. The technology used in these systems is experimental at best and clearly their fire suppression systems are inadequate. AES will say that their latest and greatest widget is better, but why did they not upgarde the system in Escondido to ensure public safety? To put it simply, AES is endagering lives with a poor site selection that is placing profit over the health and safety of the surrounding community.
I firmly believe in renewable energy, but building litium-ion battery storage facilities without adequate safety measures against fires is irresponsible and hypocritical.
Homeowners all over the county are losing their property insurance due to fire risk, and the state is mandating new, severe, fire-reduction landscape requirements on existing and new residential properties. Meanwhile, large, lithium-ion battery storage facilities–essentially ticking firebombs–are built in fire-prone areas near homes with inadequate fire-mitigation safety measures.
Mr. Wade’s contention that the development of better battery-storage technologies is prevented by not accepting the current systems rings false. There is huge profit to be made by finding new, less dangerous and more efficient methods to store solar energy, so it will be developed.
Batteries may be essential but not the way SDGE is designing the system. We need local solar with local, DISTRIBUTED batteries. Is it putting them all in one place – strictly for the convenience and profits of SDGE – that creates significant fire risk. Support no-profit power and replace SDGE with a local no-profit electric utility. This will reduce rates AND change the design of the electricity delivery design to local solar with batteries for each household and not centralized, expensive and risky.
Any Lithium Ion battery regardless of size is subject to thermal runaway and fire. Even scooter batteries have caught fire and destroyed an apartment complex in NYC.
The battery chemistry is unstable and can kick over into overheating and fire even after years of use. The battery makers like them because they can store a lot of power and they are not heavy. But the chemistry that drives the battery is unstable and can run away with no notice.
I completely agree, Carolyn. Your comment is the best one of the bunch!
I’m not against battery storage, it’s new and innovative technology that is not understood by the majority of Fire Departments across the US. I’ve spent years trying to understand the root cause of thermal runaway, the means of suppression and mitigation. The Lithium-ion Batteries are not toxic until they end up in thermal runaway which in itself is simply a chemical reaction, stop the chemical reaction and you stop the thermal runaway. That seems easy on one hand and very difficult on the other. The way fire departments have decided to fight Lithium-ion battery fires is to dump copious amounts of water on them, something the battery manufacturers try to encourage not to do. Cooling the outside of a storage container or spraying the underside of a Tesla is like trying to feed yourself by smearing food on the outside of your body to feed yourself, it just produces zero results. Until we can introduce the solution to the area where the chemical reaction is taking place we as firefighters will continue to fail to mitigate the problem.
We have ( my wife with 2 PHDs in organic chemistry and myself with years of fire experience) have made the only Lithium-ion battery Solution that can extinguish and mitigate thermal runaway on the chemical level. We are in the process of getting the product through the CAL-EPA process and other test needed to be able to be placed on the States QPL.
It’s a process and a understandable one to make sure we don’t bring further harm to the environment then the actual issue at hand, like the AFFF foam did to fight Petro-chem fires and the act of the State Bill SB1044. I say this because of the many products that are snake oil products that make claims that the products can’t back up, bringing more of a hazard than the primary hazard and all for a quick buck.
I say all of this because when our product gets on the QPL then these long winded fires that last for days will become a thing of the past. Battery storage will be the “cleaner” energy and serve their purpose. Thermal runaway will be mitigated in minutes not days. It’s getting through the process that in actual reality should have been dealt with before the idea of Electric Vehicles and battery storage facilities, we tend to be reactive instead of proactive.
I’d give battery storage a chance, suppression technology is there and will resolve itself very soon.
Wow, Phil, that sounds like a terrific undertaking that you and your wife are pursuing, so best of luck!
I see, too, that your name links to your site.
Sorry, replied under wrong area: was providing a possible solution…
Eos Energy’s zinc-based long-duration energy storage (LDES) batteries offer several advantages over lithium-ion batteries:
1. Safety: Zinc batteries are non-flammable and less prone to thermal runaway compared to lithium-ion, reducing fire risks.
2. Lower Cost: Zinc is more abundant and less expensive than lithium, which can result in lower overall production costs, especially as demand for lithium increases.
3. Longer Duration: Eos’ zinc batteries are designed for long-duration energy storage (up to 12 hours or more), making them suitable for grid-scale applications, while lithium-ion batteries typically provide shorter-duration storage.
4. Wide Operating Temperature Range: Zinc batteries are more resilient in extreme temperatures, performing well without needing expensive cooling systems that lithium-ion batteries often require.
5. Environmentally Friendly: Zinc is more eco-friendly than lithium, and Eos’ batteries are designed with recyclability in mind, lowering their environmental impact.
6. No Supply Chain Constraints: Zinc’s availability is more stable compared to lithium, which is facing supply chain challenges as demand increases for electric vehicles and other applications.
These benefits make Eos’ zinc LDES batteries particularly attractive for large-scale energy storage solutions.