A proposed battery storage plant in Chesapeake meets the city’s requirements. Neighbors don’t see it that way.
By Elizabeth McGowan
For Virginia to comply with a bold, electric-grid-enhancing law mandating a gigantic increase in energy storage resources by 2045, utilities and developers must get cracking.
And it’s equally essential, clean power proponents say, that local governments temper neighborhood revolts such as the one that erupted last month at the Chesapeake Planning Commission.
Builders of a 150-megawatt, lithium-ion phosphate battery storage facility proposed for the city’s south side were caught off guard June 10 when the Planning Commission rejected it on a 7-1 vote.
Chesapeake planners recommended greenlighting the project, noting it meets the city’s long-term goals to encourage new energy technologies and diversify the tax base…