Concern over Battery Energy Storage Systems (BESS)

Cities in South King County are confronting the prospect of as many as six new Battery Energy Storage System (BESS) facilities, and they are very concerned.

Local city officials requested, and Seattle King County REALTORS® has assisted in identifying, individuals with expertise in the regulation of energy facilities, including the potential application of protections under the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA).

The situation was first brought to the attention of Seattle King County REALTORS® by brokers in the Covington John L. Scott office in connection with a proposed BESS facility just outside the city limits, but very near to a school. Recently, an informational pre-application presentation was also made to the Black Diamond Planning Commission.

In its simplest form, BESS facilities tend to be privately-owned projects that purchase excess lower-cost electrical power during non-peak periods of the day, then sell that energy at a profit to utilities (such as Puget’s Sound Energy) during periods of high energy demand. Then, BESS facilities purchase replacement power (again, at lower cost) during non-peak periods, and later sell it for a profit during periods of high demand—in a cycle that is repeated over, and over, potentially multiple times in a single day.

Electrical generation facilities, and the electrical grid, are insufficient to meet electrical energy needs, and the situation is becoming more perilous as policymakers rush to switch to a fossil-free future.

Battery Energy Storage System facilities have the potential to be an important way to augment peak hour supplies of electrical energy, but there are several concerns:

• Unlike other municipal utilities (water, sewer, garbage, etc.) BESS facilities pose an enormously heightened risk of battery fires that firefighters typically are not able to put out. Instead, the fire must be allowed to burn itself out.

Such a situation may be untenably problematic in an urban setting where there is a risk or likelihood that fire residue and ash could be distributed over a wide geographic area…with the potential for air, ground, and groundwater pollution, especially if rain passes the pollution into the ground.

• The BESS private-sector enterprise companies are active in the Western energy markets. This creates the potential for “the risk” to be local while “the electricity” is sold or “wheeled-to” other states.
• If BESS development projects are bundled/packaged and sold, who will undertake and pay for the costs of cleanup, oversight, damages, etc. in the event of a catastrophic event in a city? The federal and state governments don’t own the project. Neither does Puget Sound Energy. Cities are understandably concerned that they will be left holding the financial bag in the event of a catastrophic event.

In response, even though there is no application currently pending in the city of Covington, the Covington City Council passed a one-year moratorium on any BESS projects inside the city limits to provide the Council with time to identify, assess and consider:

• fire risks and mitigation strategies
• city zoning
• financial risks to the city
• the authority of the state Energy Facility Site Evaluation Council to preempt any city action
• the role of the state Department of Ecology
• whether or not there is the potential for an environmental superfund contamination site to be created in the event of the catastrophic fire or other BESS failure, and
• the potential for individual cities (as well as a combined effort of cities such as Covington, Maple Valley, Black Diamond, Enumclaw etc.) to utilize the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) to protect the city and its residents both from BESS facilities within the city limits, as well as from BESS facilities located outside the city that may have the potential to negatively affect the City and its residents in the event of a fire.