On April 19, 2019, a HAZMAT team was called to an energy facility in Surprise, Arizona. A large metal container was leaking milky white smoke. It was a 2-megawatt battery energy storage system (BESS). According to one account, “Hundreds of the system’s lithium-ion battery cells had experienced a catastrophic failure and were in a dangerous state known as thermal runaway.”

When the HAZMAT team opened the container door, “a sudden explosion rocked the facility, a jet of flame extended 75 feet outward and 20 feet vertically.” The explosion force blew the HAZMAT captain 70 feet from the container door. A fire engineer was thrown violently 30 feet. Two nearby firefighters were knocked unconscious, their breathing apparatus and helmets ripped away. The captain and fire engineer suffered traumatic brain injuries, and thermal and chemical burns.

The massive explosion “confirmed for some a long-simmering fear: that the fire service and safety community are unprepared to deal with this burgeoning technology … battery incidents are so challenging for first responders.”

There were 28 BESS fires in South Korea between 2017 and 2019. “The Korean government changed storage policies from unusually strong support to zero support [and] a deterioration in the profitability of the batteries which acted as an obstacle to industrial growth, along with the fire risk.”

In December of 2020, Borrego Solar Systems of Lowell sought support from the Wendell Planning Board to apply to the state Department of Public Utilities (DPU) for a Zoning Exemption Order from all Wendell zoning rules. Borrego wanted to construct a 105-megawatt battery energy storage system on Wendell Depot Road, using lithium-ion batteries in above-ground enclosures on a 51-acre lot of which 11.1 acres of the wooded site would be clear-cut. The site would have an 8-foot-high security fence and a 25-foot-high sound barrier wall. It has no solar panels, and generates no solar energy. The batteries are charged by electricity from the grid, which is transmitted back during times of peak demand to “Eastern zone centers.” In 2022, ECP, a New Jersey investor, acquired Borrego’s development arm, and created New Leaf Energy, which in turn, created Wendell Energy Storage 1, LLC suggesting other facilities will follow.

The Wendell Planning Board voted to support Borrego in April of 2021, but four weeks later sent a letter to Borrego saying: “The Planning Board does not possess the expertise to evaluate the potential impact of a battery project” on a “Critical Natural Habitat” on the property. The Planning Board also notified the DPU that its support letter was “premature,” and rescinded “any specific or perceived support of this project.” The Board said the project had too much impervious area, and told Borrego: “Members of our community are upset at the thought that the Planning Board would diminish our local control.”

Wendell Town Meeting voted in 2021 to impose a moratorium on BESS, but the amendment was never received at the state attorney general’s office, and had no lawful effect. Wendell’s Conservation Commission denied the New Leaf application based on noise impacts on the 50-foot conservation zone. Town Meeting voted in 2022 to amend its zoning to prohibit stand-alone battery energy storage facilities” — but the AG ruled that the ordinance violates a state law that prohibits unreasonable regulation of “structures that facilitate the collection of solar energy”— except to protect public health, safety and welfare.

“No Nukes” author and activist Anna Gyorgy, a Wendell resident, listed citizen concerns: deforestation; destruction and disturbance of critical wildlife and wetland habitats; noise, light and chemical pollution; preference for conservation to reduce peak demand; environmental problems with lithium extraction and waste. “Like the Northfield Mountain Pump Storage project, New Leaf’s big battery center doesn’t produce or store renewable energy. It’s a ‘buy cheap, sell dear’ scheme to store and resell dirty energy, sacrificing forests and fish for corporate profits.”

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The DPU has not scheduled a public comment hearing yet on the Wendell project. The town will have a window of four weeks to decide if it wants to be an intervenor, which allows it to participate in evidentiary proceedings, and to appeal the final decision.

Borrego told Wendell it’s “committed to addressing concerns of town officials,” yet it seeks total exemptions from all local zoning. Wendell (pop 921) is not equipped to respond to a “thermal runaway.”

This project has an operating life of only 20 years. Batteries degrade, the storage system will be decommissioned and removed. The curse of living in a rural landscape like Wendell, is having to endure unreasonable corporate development assaults.

Al Norman’s Pushback column appears in the Recorder every third Wednesday of the month. He is an author and activist who lives in Greenfield. The group No Assaultin’ Battery can be reached at: NABWendell@crocker.com.