Dozens of Greene County residents filled the courtroom in the Historic Courthouse on Tuesday, Feb. 17, many standing for more than two hours at the Greene County Planning Board meeting. They filed into the standing-room-only meeting to show their opposition to a proposed rezoning that would allow for a battery energy storage system, or BESS.
Alabama-based energy solution company Sofos Power is proposing to rezone roughly 40 acres of agricultural land just north of Springfield as a Plot Assignment District that would specifically allow them to develop the area to store containers of lithium-ion batteries. Planning board members heard roughly two hours of testimony from nearby residents who raised concerns about an insufficient emergency response plan, damage to county infrastructure from development, and contamination of nearby water wells and Springfield’s drinking water. Ultimately, the board unanimously recommended denial of the rezoning, emphasizing that the lot at 4873 N. Rocky Lane was not the right place for such a project.
What did Sofos Power propose?
The facility and development itself would take up 16.5 acres of the total 40-acre lot. The BESS would be a way to store power during low-demand periods to then be released when there is a surge in demand, improving reliability of the grid during extreme events. According to planning documents, the project would be interconnected with the nearby City Utilities substation, and Sofos would enter into a generator interconnection agreement with the Southwest Power Pool and CU, contingent upon regional project study schedules.
CU is currently constructing its own battery storage facilities that will add 36 megawatts of battery storage within the system split between the Blackman Water Treatment Plant and the James River Power Station. Unlike what’s proposed by Sofos, CU will be storing zinc-based batteries that are non-flammable, fully recyclable and considered among the safest forms of grid-scale energy storage available, according to previous News-Leader reporting…