The proposed three-month moratorium on commercial battery energy storage system facilities in Riverhead is no longer necessary, Supervisor Tim Hubbard said yesterday, with the state about to issue new safety regulations that will apply to any BESS facilities built in Riverhead.
A proposed local law that had a public hearing in October won’t be acted on, the supervisor said.
Hubbard in September had advocated for a moratorium on utility-scale battery energy storage systems. His proposal came in response to three fires during the summer BESS facilities around the state and Gov. Kathy Hochul’s announcement of a state inter-agency working group to investigate the fires and evaluate the safety of BESS facilities.
Hochul on Dec. 21 announced the initial findings of the working group, stating in a press release there were no reported injuries from the fires and that there were no harmful levels of toxins detected at the sites of the fires.
Hochul said the working group is reviewing existing state safety codes and testing procedures for the battery storage systems and “will make recommendations to ensure building and fire codes are adequate and appropriate.”
Draft recommendations for new codes will be available for public comment in the first quarter of this year, according to the governor’s press release.
“It appears that there’s not going to be any issues with them, that things are being changed, things are being built differently, and as long as everybody meets the guidelines, it shouldn’t be any problem,” Hubbard said.
“We honestly felt that by the time the state releases this it wouldn’t make sense to do the moratorium. And anything that’s in the process will have to adhere to whatever the new guidelines are,” Hubbard said, adding that construction on BESS facilities would perhaps be years away.
Hubbard said Council Member Ken Rothwell spoke to state officials about the working group’s progress and “they indicated that everything’s gonna be okay with them,” Hubbard said. “There may be a couple of new provisions or guidelines that they are going to recommend people adopt — and then we will do that with our program.”
Rothwell, who had opposed the BESS moratorium, did not return a call yesterday seeking comment for this article.
The town will continue processing applications it has received for facilities in town, Hubbard said in an interview Thursday.
BESS facilities, which store electrical energy generated during off-peak hours to be distributed during peak hours, are a key to the rapidly developing renewable energy industry — and New York State’s goals of making its economy carbon neutral by 2050.
Under a town code unanimously adopted by the Town Board in April, all battery energy storage developments in Riverhead are required to follow the state’s building and fire safety codes.
Residents and the Riverhead Fire District commissioners supported the proposed local law establishing a three-month moratorium. In a letter to the Town Board, the fire district said the town’s volunteer firefighters “face potentially extreme conditions in the case of a fire at one of these facilities,” and that the Riverhead Fire Department and surrounding fire departments need sufficient time and resources to train and fight the fires.
The BESS moratorium also got the OK from the Suffolk County Planning Commission.
The moratorium proposal had the support of Hubbard, former Council Member Frank Beyrodt and Council Member Bob Kern. At the Nov. 9 Town Board meeting, Hubbard said the board would act on the moratorium at its Nov. 21 meeting. But Beyrodt was absent for that meeting, so no vote was held.
Hubbard pushed back the vote on both the proposed battery energy storage moratorium and a proposed industrial moratorium in Calverton until the New Year, when two new council members would join the Town Board. The delay was needed for the Calverton industrial moratorium, which required a four-vote supermajority to override a county planning commission recommendation that shortened the town’s six-month proposal to three months. But only three votes would be needed for the three-month BESS moratorium, which the planning commission approved and both Beyrodt and Kern were present for the December board meetings.
At the first meeting of the New Year, only the Calverton industrial moratorium was on the Town Board’s agenda.
The six-month industrial moratorium in Calverton — effective for development in industrial zones outside of the Calverton Enterprise Park — will likely impact the development of some battery storage facilities, which are allowed in the Industrial A and C zoning districts. BESS facilities are also allowed in the Planned Industrial Park, Agricultural Protection and Residence A-80 zoning use districts.
Two battery storage system facilities have filed applications with Riverhead Town since the new BESS code was adopted in April: a 60-megawatt facility proposed for 104 Edwards Avenue in Calverton and a 5-megawatt facility at 160 Kroemer Avenue in Riverhead. The Edwards Avenue proposal, located near a LIPA substation, is in an industrial zone captured by the town’s industrial moratorium, although whether the project would qualify for any of the exemptions under the moratorium is not clear.
“Obviously it’s something new and we believe there are some dangers to this, or unknowns,” Riverhead Fire District Board of Commissioners Chairperson Ed Carey said in an interview yesterday. “So we want to make sure that there’s enough research done so that this stuff is utilized safely and then [for] the firefighting aspect, we have enough training and knowledge of how to fight these types of fires.
“Our concern is we don’t want another incident that they had out in East Hampton here in Riverhead,” Carey said, referring to one of the three fires at battery storage facilities over the summer. “It’s new technology and we would have liked to have seen them pump the brakes a little bit to make sure that, when it does go forward, we’re able to respond to any emergency with battery storage with the proper training and tools — that’s our big thing.”
Carey said the fire department has not yet started training its membership of more than 200 people to fight the battery storage fires. He said he hopes the developers of BESS facilities provide funding for training and new equipment that would be required to fight any fires.
Two towns bordering Riverhead — Southold Town and Southampton Town — have adopted moratoria on BESS facilities.
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