PG&E looks to restart Moss Landing battery storage operations
Vistra’s Moss Landing battery storage site (Source: Vistra Energy).
Pacific Gas & Electric (PG&E) said it plans to restart operations at the Moss Landing battery storage facility as soon as June, after Vistra Energy’s “flagship” California storage system, went up in flames in January, shutting down Highway 1, evacuating more than 1,500 people, and closing local schools and businesses.
PG&E made the announcement last week in a letter to the Chair of the Monterey County Board of Supervisors, Chris Lopez of KSBW reports. The week after the fire occurred, the county board requested that PG&E and Vistra shut down the Moss Landing facility, in addition to the Elkhorn Facility that caught fire in 2022, until the cause of both fires could be determined and addressed via emergency action plans.
Following PG&E’s announcement last week that it intends to reopen Moss Landing in June, the county said the emergency action plans are still under review, and thus it believes it would still be too soon to reopen the facilities, Local News Matters reports.
What happened at Moss Landing?
Moss Landing, located about 77 miles south of San Francisco, houses tens of thousands of lithium batteries produced by LG Energy Solution Ltd. Texas-based Vistra celebrated an expansion of the battery power plant in August 2023, which has a 15-year resource adequacy agreement with Pacific Gas & Electric (PG&E). Phase III pushed the project’s total capacity to 750 MW/3,000 MWh, making it the largest battery energy storage system (BESS) in the world at the time. It is now believed to be the second-largest, trailing only the Edwards & Sanborn Solar Plus Storage Project in Kern County, CA, which reached commercial operations last year.
A call for assistance went out from Vistra personnel shortly after 3 o’clock PT on January 16. The property was promptly evacuated, and all employees and fire personnel have since been confirmed safe, per the County of Monterey. The Sheriff’s Office instructed people living nearby to leave the area, and those indoors were told to close windows and doors and shut off air systems until further notice.
North Monterey County Fire District personnel rushed to Moss Landing, where they proceeded to do exactly what they were supposed to do- secure the scene, stand back, and watch. It’s now considered best practice to let lithium battery fires exhaust themselves, which meant the plant burned well into the night. According to Monterey County spokesperson Nicholas Pasculli, by Friday morning, there was “some containment” of the fire, which was still burning but had not escaped its concrete enclosure. All three phases of Vistra’s project are housed in separate enclosures.
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While the foundations of an investigation were laid soon after the incident, some concerned locals were making the request that companies operating the BESS on and adjacent to the Moss Landing site completely shut them down until officials can determine what sparked the blaze and how it may have been prevented. Other community members voiced worries over air pollution and its impact on nearby farmland.
“We all had a metallic taste in our mouth, burning eyes, burning throat, and yellow residue all over our things,” reported Michelle Clary, a resident of nearby Royal Oaks.
“I’m very skeptical that there’s zero contaminants in the material, in the building, or what may have settled on the ground and on the crops. We have people who have organic farmers who are concerned,” added Ed Mitchell of the Moss Landing Fire Community Recovery Group.
Nearly two months post-ignition, on March 13, the California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) made its move, establishing a new set of standards for the maintenance and operation of BESS facilities and increasing oversight into emergency response action plans. The CPUC adopted General Order (GO) 167-C, which tweaks GO 167, a framework for implementing and enforcing operational standards for electric generating facilities. The CPUC also made technical updates to its standards to improve the safety and reliability of battery energy storage systems.
Originally published by Sean Wolfe and Paul Gerke on Factor This.
