New BESS Rules in Southampton Town Elicit Fears of 'Death and Destruction,' and Stagnation

Southampton Town’s new proposal to greatly restrict the size and placement of battery energy storage systems was met this week by some from the community who think the new rules don’t go nearly far enough in restricting BESS systems, which they likened to a nuclear meltdown-like looming disaster, and by some who felt they go way too far and will stifle the effort to boost energy sustainability goals set by the town.

Few offered that the BESS rules porridge the town has whipped up after more than a year of research and analysis seemed to be just right.

“We all know that BESS causes fires, explosions, toxic air, toxic water, death and destruction,” Water Mill resident Laura Zubulake said, warning that even the reduced sizes of battery systems the town is proposing would seem to pose a threat to life and limb of all town residents. “Southampton is subject to high winds, to drought conditions, we have power lines. You add BESS to that equation and you have Maui. You are asking for trouble.”

“Ban all BESS now,” she demanded sternly, to applause from some others in the audience of the Town Board meeting on Tuesday, February 11, at Southampton Town Hall.

Others were more tempered in their concerns that the town be careful in this latest iteration of BESS siting guidelines — after the last version was, as they saw it, breezed through with little forethought until a proposal for a 100-megawatt storage facility was proposed in Hampton Bays.

“You have to remember, the devil is in the details, and we rely on all of you to look at unintended consequences,” Gayle Lombardi, a Hampton Bays resident, said. “Is it better to not do it at all, or to find some strategic places. You have done a deep dive … but remember how this all started.

“History repeats itself if we don’t take a look at the history and say we can’t have this happen again,” she added, recommending that the town release a detailed plot map of all the sites where the new rules, if adopted, would allow BESS facilities to be placed.

There are only about 40 properties that would qualify, town staff have said.

The new rules restrict any BESS devices capable of storing more than 600 kilowatts of energy only to parcels zoned for light industrial uses and of at least 1 acre in size, that do not share a property line with a residential area and are at least 300 feet away from any residential property line. And it caps the size of the facilities at 5 megawatts.

Several speakers at Tuesday’s hearing on the town’s rules lobbied stridently against the town allowing BESS to be incorporated into a 2 megawatt solar farm proposed on South County Road on Quiogue. Councilwoman Cyndi McNamara pointed out that the solar farm property shares a property line with a residential area, and would therefore not be eligible to have a BESS facility built on it under the proposed new code amendments.

The explanation drew some hesitant sighs of relief.

The new rules would allow systems bigger than 5 megawatts, up to 19 megawatts, to be installed, but only as dedicated accessories to a renewable energy resource — solar farms would be the only such source allowed in the town as of now — and only with the express permission of the Town Board.

“You would have to take legislative action, akin to a zone change, to be bigger than [5 megawatts], with a limit of 19 megawatts,” town Planning Administrator Janice Scherer explained. “The reason why we picked that number, 19 mw … is because after that, the state gets involved and it becomes an Office of Renewable Energy Application, and we’re interested in maintaining home rule.”

The new rules would still allow a homeowner to install small dedicated battery systems up to 80 kw that meet building and fire safety requirements, and commercial businesses could have batteries that can hold up to 600 kw, but must get new approvals from the town Planning Board.

The new rules were drafted by a task force empaneled last winter to reexamine the town’s BESS allowances adopted in 2021, which quickly led to a rush of applications by BESS developers — including the 100 mw Canal Southampton Battery Storage on land between the exit ramps of Sunrise Highway and North Road.

That project sparked outrage from residents of nearby neighborhoods who held up recent instances of fires at BESS facilities around the country — including in East Hampton — as evidence the systems would threaten their safety.

The Town Board on Tuesday resolved to extend a moratorium that has been in place for 18 months on new BESS project applications for another three months, to give “some breathing room” for them to finalize the proposed rules. The board will hold another public hearing on the code amendments in March.

Renewable energy advocates have called for BESS facilities to help reduce reliance on fossil-fuel generators to supply power in times of peak demand, or to reserve power from renewable sources for times when sun or wind are not generating sufficient power. None spoke at Tuesday’s hearing.

But their message was carried by spokespeople for two development companies that had been crafting plans to bring battery storage to the South Fork, where both towns have adopted mission statements of steering toward energy sustainability by the next decade.

“We believe the proposed changes will significantly hinder the town’s goals of promoting sustainability and transitioning toward 100 percent renewable energy,” said Lucia Yu, of Key Capture Energy. “We strongly recommend the town reconsider the regulation on BESS sizing. We reviewed data from every substation in the town and peak demand is around 150 mw and a 6.5-hour duration — so residents are drawing 150 mw of power from LIPA for almost seven hours and no offshore wind is proposed to connect to Southampton, so BESS will be vital to helping the town achieve its renewable energy goals.”

She noted that limiting BESS systems only to light industrial parcels is a clunky and inefficient way to allow the systems in any form — since zoning maps were not laid out with electrical transmission in mind. She suggested that the town would be better to pore over its land use maps and identify specific parcels by their proximity to existing electrical transmission infrastructure that could be sited regardless of zone while still meeting the concerns about safety to residents and the public at large.

Another developer, Emily Dwyer of Edgewise Energy, said that concerns about safety from BESS systems are overblown, despite the January fire at a California facility that was the largest in the nation. The technology is advancing rapidly — the batteries that caught fire in California were six years old — and New York State is already poised to adopt the nation’s most stringent fire protection codes for BESS systems, she said.

In drafting and preparing to adopt the new code, town officials have acknowledged the rapid evolution of the BESS space and the concerns surrounding them, expressing a desire to take a much more careful approach now with the understanding that rules can always be loosened as the industry proves itself safe and effective.

John Watson, a Southampton resident who works in renewable energy development upstate, said that in his experience, the town’s new rules will be effective at containing the rush to bring new BESS facilities to the region. He said that he had been preparing to do it upstate, but quickly redirected his investments as the fervor over the handful of fires at BESS facilities spread.

“As developers, we turn away immediately when we see that the zoning code is restrictive, which this is,” he said. “The setback requirement, from what I’ve heard, is extremely restrictive and it’s going to discourage a lot of developers.”