San Diego supervisors to consider lithium-ion battery storage pause following fires

Following last week’s lithium battery fire resulting in evacuation orders and warnings at a San Diego Gas & Electric battery storage facility in Escondido and the lithium-ion fire at an Otay Mesa storage complex that occurred earlier this year, the County Board of Supervisors will consider putting a pause on future such facilities.

The action in front of the supervisors on Wednesday will present several options to the board. The body can request additional fire suppression technical reports and/or include new disclosure requirements to make any new battery energy storage systems go “above and beyond” current code requirements.

Additionally, they will have the choice to put a temporary moratorium on the acceptance of new BESS applications or adopt an urgency ordinance requiring new facilities to use modular designs and follow National Fire Protection Association guidelines.

The item was already scheduled for the board but gained more urgency following the Thursday afternoon fire at the SDG&E facility. The fire was allowed to burn out by itself — per industry standard, a statement from the Escondido Fire Department read.

Just one of the site’s 24 cells caught fire.

While no one was injured by the fire, evacuation orders were issued to businesses in the largely industrial part of the city.

Another recent fire took place earlier this year by the border. Fire authorities in Otay Mesa also issued evacuation orders, as lithium-ion fires are notoriously difficult to extinguish. According to CalFire, the threat of potential poisonous vapors and explosions prompted the evacuation orders.

The moratorium the supervisors will discuss couldn’t come any sooner, some residents of Escondido say.

“Area residents are renewing their call for the county to issue a moratorium on building new lithium battery storage facilities in neighborhoods,” reads a statement from a group of citizens, including JP Theberge of the Elfin Forest Harmony Grove Town Council and Joe Rowley, a retired engineer and battery storage facility developer.

“The Escondido battery fire is unfolding in an industrial area away from homes and residences. However, it reinforces the concerns of residents that a project that is 10 times larger (the Seguro project) is being proposed, which would be surrounded by hundreds of homes and upwind from a hospital in northern San Diego County, near Escondido,” they write. “Despite the current fire being in an industrial area, hundreds of businesses were evacuated and many more were told to shelter-in-place. Schools located downwind were closed today as well.”

Should the supervisors elect the moratorium route, it could freeze the proposed AES’ Seguro storage project in Escondido, not far from where Thursday’s fire took place. This project would be capable of storing up to 320 megawatts or 1,280 megawatt hours worth of energy — several times larger than the facility where the fire continues to burn.

Without the Battery Energy Storage System (BESS) facilities, the county could have a difficult time meeting its climate goals.

The battery storage facilities are a component of the county’s respond to green energy, storing energy from renewable sources such as solar or wind to use as needed. They are intended as an alternative or at least a supplement to fossil fuel energies such as natural gas and oil.