Prince Edward County council has denied support for a major energy storage project.
The battery energy storage system (BESS), proposed to be located on County Road 5, would have consisted of a large complex of lithium ion batteries that could be charged by the provincial power grid when there’s more power than needed and feed that power back to the grid when demand outpaces production.
The facility, if built, could have stored up to 250 megawatts of power.
During Tuesday evening’s council meeting, many local residents spoke to council about their concerns with the project. One of the problems that several petitioners brought up was the risk of fire, with one petitioner mentioning a fire in Arizona in a similar facility that took days to extinguish.
Another concern included the loss of prime agricultural land.
After residents spoke about their concerns the president of Compass Energy Consulting, Johnathan Cheszes, gave a deputation to council about the project.
During his deputation, he talked about the benefits of the facility to the community, such as helping to address rising energy demands. He said that other benefits would include the creation of jobs, and tax revenue from the facility. He also pointed out that this location was adjacent to existing high voltage power lines, a power substation, and a solar farm, which made it an ideal place to connect to existing power infrastructure.
Council debated on the information received from both Cheszes, and the citizens who had come to speak about the resolution. Councillor Roberts proposed an amendment to the original motion to not just accept the information as presented to council, but to deny support of the project.
“For similar battery storage BESS projects around the world since 2017, there have been about 50 incidents around the world of fires, pollution, loss of life associated with these battery storage facilities,” said Councillor Roberts. “I didn’t see any evidence that the proponents of this larger BESS project had any experience with battery storage of this size. There was clear indication from the residents of Prince Edward County. They were anxious about the project.”
Councillor Roberts went on to say, “I couldn’t see how exchanging prime ag for 15 acres of storage containers, 250 HVAC systems, bright lights annoying the neighbours was a good trade for food-producing agricultural.”
After denying support for the County Road 5 project, council heard a deputation regarding a pair of smaller proposed battery storage projects on Mowbray Road. These much smaller batteries were to be constructed alongside existing solar energy plants, and combined would hold up to 24 megawatt hours of power.
These storage facilities are to use lithium phosphate batteries, which are supposed to be safer than the lithium ion batteries proposed for the larger site.
After a brief debate, council instructed staff to create a report analyzing the proposal and possible effects on the community before issuing any support or denial of the pair of smaller projects.
