The Christian County Commissioners voted 3-0 on Thursday, April 18, 2024 to reject an application to build a battery storage facility in Ozark (previous article HERE). Fierce opposition from residents located near the proposed facility, as well as other citizens, made the commissioners' decision popular.
The second floor courtroom was packed for most of the meeting, with
citizens handing out flyers and information they had gathered. A team from the developer Black Mountain Energy Storage, based in Austin, TX traveled to the meeting to make another pitch to the commissioners. Also, a representative of Show Me Christian County, the development organization of the county spoke in favor of the project.
While the
dialog was mostly cordial, citizens were quick to react and call out
the Black Mountain team at times. Show Me Christian County President and CEO Kristen Haseltine spoke about a forecasted tax increase for local schools of up to $24 million, which caused Commissioner Brad Jackson to later counter that because the facility would be considered personal property and not real property, a future change in the law (getting rid of the personal property tax) could negate all of the tax windfall.
Kristen Haseltine
Haseltine
said, "Whenever this project came about, almost a year ago, we were
informed about it and so we started investigating and started looking at
it...seeking professional input from, um, across the state. We have
even gone to Eaglepicher...in
Joplin. They actually produce lithium ion batteries. We have talked
with, I think, a minimum of six different utility partners, Liberty
included, as well as cooperatives. We've talked to regional, as well as
statewide, different groups. So we feel like we have been in lots of
conversations, done research...Honestly I'm gonna point out Todd [Wiesehan, Resource Management Director].
Todd has done an amazing job at creating a summary of this project and
addressing some of the concerns, and provided all of the resources that
he used during his research. Based upon a lot of that research and
investigation and everything that we've done, and including--which I'm going to point out--Danny Gray [county assessor] the financial impact as well."
Haseltine went on to share three main points that attracted Show Me Christian County to the project: 1) Construction jobs 2) Energy Supply 3) Financial impact
Haseltine admitted that the construction jobs (about 100) would be temporary. Additionally, the Black Mountain team admitted earlier in the meeting that there is no guarantee that county residents would see a rise in the local energy supply or a lowering of rates. And, as noted above, if the personal property tax is done away with, the taxes collected would not meet the projection that Black Mountain gave to the assessor.
Presiding Commissioner Lynn Morris kept control of the meeting while allowing everyone to speak. The commissioners had done their homework about the project, and Morris remarked that he had received a plethora of emails and phone calls from concerned citizens.
In an interesting development, the property owner, Stu Stenger of Natural Bridge, LLC, who also owns the land adjacent to the proposed facility, did not appear. Apparently, Stenger has plans to build a housing development on his adjacent property, and Haseltine inferred that if Stenger did not have a problem with the storage facility then citizens could feel at ease.
Later, a citizen who is a real estate appraiser got up to speak (at about the 1:44:00 timestamp) and explained how projects like the proposed battery storage facility could negatively affect property values. At the end, she said, "And I don't agree with that developer [Stenger]. He's gonna have a hard time selling a $500,000 or $600,000 house sitting next to a storage facility and a substation."
Haseltine arose in defense of Stenger, saying that his company had taken into consideration all the variables of locating a housing development near a utility. She also cited the housing shortage and stable local home prices as reasons for going forward with building housing near the battery storage facility.
Commissioner Morris commented about the absence of the developer, Stu Stenger, saying, "I'm a little disappointed. I continue to be that way, from time to time when people who should be at a meeting don't come to the meeting."
Commissioner Bradley Jackson spoke just before making a motion to deny the application for the project. "I don't like having people tell me, 'Think of all the property tax that will be generated for the schools.Think about the schools'. I do think about the schools. I think about them a lot. But the fact that there is a governor candidate that is running on the premise of eliminating the personal property tax, I can't take that into consideration as a revenue source. And I'm not going to be bought or have that threat of money hamper my ability to make a good decision. My citizens are worth more than money."
The motion was seconded by Commissioner Bilyeu, and the vote to deny the application was 3-0.
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.
