Town eyes six-month ban on big battery systems

Key Capture Energy’s facility in Blasdell, N.Y.

By THANE GRAUEL

The town board might institute a six-month moratorium on battery energy storage systems.

It set a public hearing on such systems — which are large-scale, not smaller ones like those found at homes — at its Jan. 21 meeting.

The public hearing is at 7:30 p.m. on Tuesday,  Feb. 25, at the Town House, located at 179 Westchester Ave., Pound Ridge. People wishing to participate can do so by videoconference via Zoom.

Town Supervisor Kevin Hansan said the storage systems became a “sudden issue here, specifically around Westchester County.”

“It became an issue very clearly back in the fall, when Putnam County went ahead and authorized a large commercial battery engineering storage system,” Hansan said. “And they did it right on the border of Westchester County ... right by a residential area.”

“That didn’t seem to be a very fair thing,” he said.

He said such an energy issue appears to be outside the purview of municipalities when it comes to zoning.

“The state thinks they have the authority to put this wherever they deem required, or the public utilities or whatever required or deemed it appropriate to do,” Hansan said.

He said the Association of Towns is fighting back against it, “they don’t think this follows the concept of home rule.”

“The purpose of this local law is to protect the public health, safety and welfare of the residents of the town of Pound Ridge,” the proposed moratorium reads, “and to maintain the status quo by temporarily suspending the processing of land use approvals as provided herein and to further suspend the rights of landowners and their designees to obtain development approvals as identified below for a period of six months from the date of the adoption of this local law while the town board studies, analyzes and determines potential appropriate revisions and amendments to the Town Code regarding the propriety of Battery Energy Storage Systems.”

“So there are safety concerns,” said Melinda Avellino, chairwoman of the conservation board, “There’s been fires that have already happened in New York state.”

She said there have also been fires nationwide, the latest, she said, in Monterey, Calif.

“There are risks of fire, explosion, thermal runaway ... ” she added.

Avellino said Gov. Kathy Hochul formed the New York State Interagency Fire Safety Working Group to address the issues and establish guidelines, including how emergencies are responded to.

A draft of a code has been prepared and the agency hopes to adopt it by the end of the year, she said.

Board member Namasha Schelling asked if this was a large problem.

“It’s already a problem in neighboring communities,” member Dan Paschkes replied. “... there’s no application in Pound Ridge; we’re trying to get ahead of it.”

“I understand there are significant possibilities of problems but we also have to respond to climate change,” Schelling said. “We have a bigger problem. We still have to do something other than keeping our trees.”

“It’s not that we’re proposing prohibition,” Paschkes said. “This is similar to what course we took with zoning for the cannabis facilities — we’re trying to get ahead of it before we get applications pending. So what we’re looking for is a six-month pause, moratorium.”

Nicole Shaffer asked that her group, the Energy Action Committee, be involved in the process.

“While we support a moratorium so that the town has time to come into regulations, we want to make sure it’s done fact-based not fear-based,” she said. “And we do highly recommend having an exemption for residents and our local small business.”