‘Fayette County Says No’ Group Adds Battery Brawl to Its Turbine Tussle

Fayette County Says No, the group opposed to a proposed wind turbine project in Fayette County, recently turned its attention to a proposed battery energy storage facility.

Fayette County Commissioners Court will hold a public hearing on a possible tax abatement for the facility on August 22. The facility, if built, would be located on land owned by Pct. 1 Commissioner Jason McBroom in the Warda area. The land is located next to an electrical substation.

The battery storage facility would connect to the Texas power grid through that substation. Evan Horn, a consultant working on the Staccato project, has told the Record that the battery project in Warda is not related to the wind turbine project proposed by Apex Clean Energy.

McBroom has recused himself from all Commissioners Court discussion and votes about the tax abatement. According to records at the Fayette County Clerk’s Office, McBroom signed a lease with Staccato Storage, the company that wants to build the facility, in 2022. McBroom has also filed a conflict-of-interest statement with the County Clerk due to his association with the project.

Swiss Alp resident Tammy Jo McCleney, the leader of Fayette County Says No, has raised a number of concerns about the battery storage project, especially the risk of fire.

“I personally am more concerned about battery storage because of the lack of fire suppression against lithium battery fires and the massive destruction and community evacuations they cause,” Mc-Cleney posted on the group’s Facebook page last week. “I’ve talked to several fire fighters, we are not equipped to handle this here.”

Battery fires are notoriously hard to put out. They are also extremely rare.

As of June of this year, there were 640 battery storage facilities operating in the United States, according to the U.S. Department of Energy.

According to the Electric Power Research Institute (EPRI), there were 15 “failure incidents” at battery storage facilities worldwide in 2023, and three so far this year.

Fires and other such incidents involving battery storage are more common during manufacturing, transport and recycling operations as opposed to systems that are in operation. The EPRI has documented six such incidents this year worldwide.