Green Energy Isn't So Green

 By Gretchen Garrity

The Christian County Commission held a meeting on Tuesday, Feb. 27, 2024 at the Resource Management Building to consider a plan by Black Mountain Energy Storage to purchase and develop a 34-acre parcel for lithium battery storage.

Proposed Black Mountain Battery Storage Facility in Ozark   (Click here for public documents pertaining to the project)

$100 million project

Would be termed a public utility

Purchase agreement in place of 34.1 acre parcel

Development of 6-8 acres of the parcel

56 storage units, each approximately 8’ tall and 40’ wide

Able to store 75 MGW or 300 MWh of electricity (It takes about 33 Mwh to power one home for a month)

Additional substation to be added

Nearest home is 525 feet away from current substation

New substation will be 600 feet away from housing

100 temporary construction jobs, not guaranteed local

Some tax benefit to the county, though not stated

No promise of local benefit on electricity costs

The meeting was packed, standing room only.

Introduced to the public at last week’s Christian County Commission meeting, Resource Management Director Todd Wiesehan, gave a short update to his presentation to answer questions he had received. Wiesehan said, “We have gotten plenty of input,” and said there were some concerns about siting, environmental control, safety, fire hazards, and removal if the storage facility is decommissioned or abandoned.

What Wiesehan did not say is that the community surrounding the proposed facility had not been properly informed of the plans. Only seven letters went out to the homes in the area to inform residents. Later, during the public comment section, citizen Rose Bergman said she had personally visited 50 households in the area to alert them to the proposed storage facility. Additionally, the county Planning and Development had been working with Black Mountain Energy Storage for approximately a year prior to last week’s presentation to the county commission.

 A purchase agreement was entered into since August 2023 that is open for three years.

Wiesehan went on to say that the county has the authority to attach certain conditions to satisfy concerns to the county order, if given approval. He said, “The staff has assembled a draft list of conditions and requirements that are intended to reasonably address the major concerns which have been identified so far.”

He then went over the types of concerns that had been voiced. He mentioned siting and visual impacts, possible requirements to plant trees around the facility to “buffer,” lighting requirements to aim down and in to the site to minimize light pollution, site access (the developer would bear all burden of that requirement during construction).

He mentioned water management and retention as environmental concerns that would be addressed, as well as erosion controls developed. The developer would have to preserve existing wetlands (there are two ponds on the parcel), and minimize tree removal.

Safety concerns included a commissioning plan (fires and other mishaps can happen when these facilities are newly commissioned), providing a maintenance manual, documents explaining the design and maintenance, testing, etc.

He also mentioned an emergency operations plan that would necessarily include multiple jurisdictions in the event of an emergency. Also a fire safety compliance plan would be required. Not only would the facility need to meet local codes, but also requirements that pertain to lithium battery storage units, as well as specific training for local responders. Security fencing would be required.

 Wiesehan lastly mentioned a decommissioning and removal plan as a requirement, with a possible bond provided by the developer to cover the cost of such eventualities.

The meeting was then turned over to Black Mountain Energy Storage’s Carolyn O’Brien, Director of Permitting and Entitlement, who admitted she was “not used to talking to so many people.” 

She said she hoped her presentation would alleviate concerns that many people had expressed. The parent company to Black Mountain Energy Storage (BMES) is Black Mountain, a company founded in 2007. It is an Australian company. BMES is based in Texas and was founded in 2021.

O’Brien admitted that battery storage of lithium batteries is a new technology. “We are on the forefront of the companies that have been created,” she said. Even though three years is a short time, it is relatively a long-time in the stand-alone battery storage industry, she said.

She next went on to give a slide presentation of what the battery storage units look like, their size (8’ by 40’), how they are not made to be opened, and their batteries, racks, inverters, and fire suppression systems.

She mentioned the containers were made to operate outside and in environments where a lot of safety measurements are required. Fire protection for smoke and heat, explosion prevention, and working very closely with fire departments to ensure safe handling was also mentioned.

She also spoke about redundancy designs, for instance if one smoke detector doesn’t work there are backups to the system. She mentioned full-scale fire testing that happens with lithium battery storage. She mentioned a couple testing codes and requirements. She said that the units have been tested thoroughly for whatever condition exists. 

O’Brien said BMES has a great team for prospecting and siting of these storage facilities. She said she spoke with the manager of that team who shared insights into why this particular location was chosen. White River Valley Electric Cooperative controls most of the power production in this area, so when White River is at a certain level the reservoirs are either released or not released, and that is what provides the power...and that may not always be what is optimal for power transmission or rates.”

She then mentioned that if our area was in a flood or drought condition, there may or may not be a release from the dam. She also said that weather conditions can determine whether there is a release from the coal plant. “So, with a battery storage in this area, it kind of smooths the curve. So basically it sort of flattens the curve, um if you will, on the peaks and valleys you can get with the energy production provided that is basically dependent on White River in this area.”

What was not readily shared, was that the company would not necessarily have or sell the stored electricity to provide assistance, since the company would be selling its electricity to many different grid customers. It is dependent, of course, on the availability to purchase stored power from the company that owns the battery storage facility.

Later, O’Brien mentioned tax revenues. “The tax contribution, uh, we are an over $100 million facility with a span of 20 years and...there is a tax benefit to having [the battery storage facility.]”

Next, she mentioned that the company plans on being a good neighbor. “That’s why we’re here, we do want to be good neighbors. I know a lot of you are concerned about that. We really want you all to feel like we’re gonna come into the community and you’re gonna know what’s happening and that you’re gonna be safe and, you know, you’re gonna be able to enjoy the wildlife.”

She shared an example of a battery storage facility near Austin, Texas to give the audience an idea of what the facility would look like when completed. She noted that the facility was very close to residential subdivisions in the area, and said the company did provide fencing and landscaping.

She said that on the Ozark project they are looking at 2028 for commissioning, since the breakers on the facility have a 36-month lead time. Additionally, there has not yet been any permitting on the project, and O’Brien asserted there would be no impact on any nearby wetlands.

Citizens were then given time to comment and they had done their homework. At one point the consensus in the room was nearly 100% against the project by hands raised. There were citizens with decades of experience with electrical power, software systems engineering, and real estate appraisals among the crowd. Complaints and concerns were centered on the following issues:

• Numerous residents are in close proximity to the proposed facility
• No nearby fire station
• Water contamination from a catastrophic event
• Citizens are not seeing power fluctuations, as O’Brien cited happened in Texas, which is on its own grid
• Black Mountain Energy has previously been fined for misstatements of facts, according to a citizen
• Black Mountain Energy is a land acquisition company, a citizen said
• Black Mountain Energy Storage has 20 projects, four under construction, all completed projects have been sold to other companies, including foreign companies
• No bonding agreement yet available; incomplete paperwork available to public
• Tendency of energy companies to go bankrupt and leave counties/cities with costs to decommission and remove (no money for bonding from bankrupt company)
• Although O’Brien said water suppression was not used to put out runaway thermal fires, a citizen later cited a paper that said water suppression is still the major component used to suppress the extremely hot temperatures of lithium ion battery fires. The fires must burn themselves out, but water as a cooling agent can prevent other units from catching fire
• No answer on what company is manufacturing the battery units
• Springfield was persuaded by the federal government to destroy their coal plant, and electricity costs have risen
• Public utilities are hard to shut down
• Rates of serious fires, injuries, poisoning, and deaths associated with battery storage facilities was cited by several citizens
• The county planning and zoning commission did not get a Department of Natural Resources report, and relied exclusively on studies provided by BMES
• The county planning and zoning commission did not research the negative impacts of battery storage facilities before presenting to the county commission, or if they did, they did not present that to the commissioners
• No study of property value impact
• No special limits on battery weights, possibly leading to infrastructure road damage
• Operational range temperatures: batteries begin degrading at 105°f and become inoperable at 112-115°f. Conversely, at 14°f batteries begin to degrade and become inoperable at -12°f
  
• Battery life span is often not the advertised 15 years, but anywhere from 5 to 10.5 years on the low end, with an average of 8.3-year span
• The advertised 55-decibel rating for sound per unit (temperature control) is closer to 75 decibels, according to one citizen. There are 56 units in the proposed facility. A lawn mower is 83 decibels. 
• One citizen claimed the company was operating in the red
•  One citizen expressed concern that O’Brien could not or would not answer numerous questions. 
• A citizen said the current wind rating was not acceptable for tornado activity
•  Another citizen said all the risk would be on the county and none on the company, since the county would have jurisdiction

Presiding Commissioner Lynn Morris announced there would be more meetings to discuss the issue, and that it may be months before a decision would be made on whether to approve a county order for the facility.