Assemblywoman Dawn Addis speaking at the Moss Landing Power Plant following a fire at the BESS plant. Photo courtesy of Dawn Addis
A bill introduced by our local Assemblywoman concerning safety matters with large-scale battery storage systems, has gotten the resounding support of the Morro Bay City Council.
The Council voted unanimously to send a letter of support for Assembly Bill 303 (AB 303), proposed by Dist. 30 Assemblywoman Dawn Addis (D — Morro Bay) in the smoldering aftermath of a spectacular fire in January at the Moss Landing Battery Energy Storage System facility, owned by Vistra Energy, the same company that has proposed building an even bigger BESS plant at the old Morro Bay Power Plant property.
“In its current form,” reads a report from City Manager Yvonne Kimball, “the proposed legislation, among other things, seeks to create siting requirements for potentially hazardous battery energy storage system (BESS) facilities.”
AB 303, officially called the “Battery Energy Safety and Accountability Act,” has three main areas:
• Eliminates the authority of the Energy Commission to approve any pending or future battery energy storage system (BESS) projects that seek opt-in certification created by AB 205, and returns certification authority to local jurisdictions;
• Creates new setback requirements for any BESS project which prohibit any BESS from being sited within 3,200 feet of a sensitive receptor (e.g., residences, schools, community centers, health care facilities) or on an environmentally sensitive site; and,
• Contains an urgency clause, meaning the bill would go into effect immediately upon being signed into law.
The first point takes direct aim at another controversial law passed in 2022. AB 205 created a work-around pathway for renewable energy projects (like the BESS) that bypasses local jurisdictions.
In essence, companies can skip local reviews and apply directly to the California Energy Commission for permitting. The law overrides all local laws and ordinances, but all projects would still be subject to review by the Coastal Commission (for projects within the Coastal Zone) and State Lands Commission (when applicable).
Kimball explained that the bill, as it was proposed, fits with the City Council’s approved “legislative platform,” the items or areas the City Council wants its lobbyists in Sacramento to support, and is in line with a local ordinance the Council approved that bans “grid scale” battery facilities anywhere within the City Limits.
Overturning AB 205 could be a challenging part of Addis’ AB 303, as it was put in to sidestep the NIMBY-ism inherent in California. It could test the resolve of true believers, who have been having a kerfuffle over climate change and the need for a clean, renewable energy power grid. AB 205 was passed to h3lp expedite such projects.
In late 2020, Vistra proposed building a 600-megawatt BESS on a 22-acre portion of the 100-acre power plant property. It’s where the plant’s fuel storage tanks once sat, holding tankered fuels — diesel, kerosene, fuel oil — that were once burned at the plant that Pacific Gas & Electric completed in 1964.
The plant ran on such dirty fuels for about 30 years and was by far the largest single source of air pollution in San Luis Obispo County.
But PG&E switched over full time to natural gas in 1996, after PG&E completed a direct gas pipeline from oil fields in the Central Valley to the Coast. The air quality improvement was instantaneous.
The storage tanks were removed over a decade ago and the entire plant was shutdown for good in 2014. The plant has sat empty and unused since it closed.
Vistra’s BESS Project has been met with opposition since the beginning and even as the City Planning Department worked on the exhaustive review, a citizen’s group, “Citizens for Estero Bay Coastal Preservation,” was able to gather enough petition signatures and qualify Measure A-24 for the November 2024 General Election Ballot.
A-24 was a zoning amendment that requires the City Council to seek voter approval for a necessary zoning change the BESS Project needs in order to be approved.
Measure A-24 garnered a large majority of votes and was overwhelmingly approved. But last October, before the November vote, Vistra “paused” its project before the City and told the City Council that it intended to seek approval through the Energy Commission under AB 205. So far the company has not yet applied to the CEC.
The City of Morro Bay finished 2024 with the BESS project in limbo until Jan. 16 when Vistra’s Moss Landing BESS (300 MW), caught fire and burned out of control for about 2 days, and continued to smolder and occasionally flare up again for nearly a week.
That fire caused the evacuation of over 1,200 people from the sparsely populated Moss Landing and surrounding areas, including nearby Castroville.
The Moss Landing Fire changed attitudes almost universally about siting such volatile facilities in urban areas. Aside from Moss Landing Harbor, it’s mostly farmlands in the immediate area of the plant.
Whereas a BESS in Morro Bay, would be located in the middle of the city and only about 200-yards from the local high school. Both Addis’ AB 303 and the new City Ordinance (Urgency Ordinance No. 668) would ban Vistra’s project at the power plant property.
Whether Addis’ bill becomes law will be a test of the resolve of lawmakers to fight the climate crisis versus the legislature’s absolute duty to protect its citizens, voters and taxpayers.
Lithium-ion battery fires are extremely hard to put out. Indeed, the Monterey County Fire Department decided to let the Moss Landing Fire burn itself out, rather than try and extinguish it. Lithium-ion battery fires must be put out with firefighting foam, as water actually fuels and intensifies the fire.
