“The Monterey County Board of Supervisors held an emergency meeting Friday morning to discuss the fire. County Supervisor Glenn Church told KSVW-TV, ‘There’s no way to sugarcoat it. This is a disaster, is what it is’.”
The world’s second largest lithium-ion battery storage facility broke into flames last week (Jan. 16) some 77 miles south of San Francisco at Vistra Corp’s Moss Landing gas-fired power plant site, prompting an evacuation order of site workers and some nearby areas. The fire initially began to subside but flared up again the next day.
Firefighters decided to let the fire burn itself out rather than trying to extinguish it. A Monterey official told Reuters, that “the best approach, according to fire staff, is to allow the building and batteries to burn.” Officials said the fire finally burned out on January 20.
CNBC reported on Friday that about 40% of the building has been consumed in the fire, whose cause remains under investigation.
The Vistra plant has 750-MW of power storage capacity, or 3,000-MWh of electric delivery, providing backup power to solar-heavy Oakland-based Pacific Gas and Electric.
When Texas-based Vistra completed the construction of the project in August 2023, it claimed Moss Landing battery storage was “the largest of its kind in the world.” Since then, it has been eclipsed by the Edwards & Sanborn Solar + Energy Storage site in Kern County, Calif., a joint Air Force and local utilities project at 875-MW and 3,287-MWh.
The Monterey County Board of Supervisors held an emergency meeting Friday morning to discuss the fire. County Supervisor Glenn Church told KSVW-TV, “There’s no way to sugarcoat it. This is a disaster, is what it is.”
The fire has also generated broader political interest. California Assemblywoman Dawn Addis (D-Morro Bay) issued a statement as the news of the fire spread. “I am deeply concerned and have serious questions about the safety of this battery energy storage plant. I will be looking for transparency and accountability for why this happened again at Moss Landing. I am exploring all options for preventing future battery energy storage fires from ever occurring again on the Central Coast,” she said. She is chair of the California Legislative Central Coast Caucus.
1 comment:
"The fire has also generated broader political interest." From a Democrat this means blaming a Republican. But members of the GOP few and far between in the Bay area so let's blame Trump.
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