Black Mountain Energy Storage presented information regarding a project and asked for a variance in Erath County on Monday, July 11 at the Erath County Commissioner’s meeting.
Prior to a presentation from Black Mountain Energy Storage Manager of Development Sam Jackson, several citizens offered concerns in public comments.
Comments ranged from asking Black Mountain representatives to water down the county road four times a day to aid dust spreading to residences during the construction phases, to fire safety questions.
“I want to make sure you look into the questions of the fire hazard and what should happen and ask if they are going to help train our fire department on how to deal with this, should there be a fire,” Joanna Friebele said. Friebele questioned if there would be a substation on the property located off of County Road 300.
“A substation does lower your value in property 20 to 40% for those properties surrounding it,” Friebele said. She stated that since battery storage was so new no research had been completed yet about surrounding property values. Friebele asked about water usage, if the company was asking for tax abatements and provided commissioners with a hand-out about solar energy.
During Jackson’s presentation, many questions from the audience and the commissioners were asked.
“We are hoping to increase the reliability of the electric grid by storing electricity that isn’t utilized and then discharging it at a later time when Texans do need it such as the winter when they can’t get normal generation on line,” Jackson said.
The project, known as Lucky Bluff BESS, will be located on a 28.5-acre parcel of land off of County Road 300 and is comprised of lithium-ion batteries. The project will not encompass the entire piece of property but Jackson said they wanted to be set back far enough from the edges of the property. There is a transmission line that runs across the property they will be connecting to.
“We are working with Oncor, and what they are going to do is build a small switching station and that will take the electricity off the grid and into the batteries where they charge and discharge,” Jackson said.
The land has been purchased and phase I environmental has been completed. Several other studies including a drainage study will be completed as well as endangered species analysis.
“So the drainage analysis, to speak to your point, is to ensure that when we build the project when the runoff happens it does not impact any of the surrounding land and it does not impact the current drainage. So when it does rain it does not impact the surrounding properties and does follow a secure drainage path,” he said.
Along with a general presentation, a variance regarding the project is being sought in regard to accessing the site. This item was tabled in the July 11 meeting, however, the company had previously asked the commission for a variance to permit access without obtaining 200’ of road frontage on a 60 foot wide piece of land at the June 13 meeting. The commission stated at that time they would not give them that variance but might be willing to grant them a 130-foot change.
Construction is scheduled to start in 2024 and the drainage study would be completed after the variance is approved.
Precinct 2 Commissioner Albert Ray stated he would like to see the drainage analysis completed as soon as possible.
“We are still in the very early stages of this project,” Jackson said.
Fire and safety was one of the most discussed topics of the project and Jackson assured the citizens and commission that local fire departments would receive training on how to deal with the potential of a fire at the site. Jackson cited an incident in 2018 with a different battery storage company where firefighters lost their lives due to unsafe practices. “So I put together a detailed fire plan, work with local fire marshals to make sure that fire safety plan gets followed,” he said.
There will be clean agent Stat-X foam fire suppression systems in each unit, Jackson said, and if there is fire or smoke detection the foam suppression system discharges.
“It’s actually recommended that there is no entry into the unit or in the fenced property, although we recommend the fire marshal or fire departments to spray the surrounding area with water to keep it cool,” he said. “The units are meant to burn out inside themselves.”
Jackson stated that each module was in a steel containment unit.
“The only scenario in which there would be leakage of that is if someone drove a forklift into it or something,” he said. “You can’t put it at zero percent but it’s a very, very low scenario. The risk of fire in general is very low.”
Citizens expressed concerns over the fire getting hot enough to melt the steel containment container and Jackson responded that he had never heard of that happening simply because of the suppression system.
Other citizens spoke about groundwater pollution concerns regarding carcinogens.
Batteries are cooled with HVAC units and citizens expressed concern they are using power off the grid for this air conditioning.
Jackson mentioned that battery storage devices are extremely helpful with intermittent power resources such as solar and wind so that on a cloudy day or a nonwindy day, the stored power can kick into the grid.
One reason the Lucky Bluff BESS project was chosen for this area, he said, was because the transmission line was identified as having congestion and issues.
“Technically you aren’t helping Erath County,” Ray said.
Ray asked if there was a power outage how long would the batteries assist the community. The answer was a couple of hours in the case of a complete outage.
Jackson gave an example of the batteries being charged at 3 a.m. when few people were using electricity, essentially capturing unused electricity that would be discarded. The batteries would then be able to feed the electricity back into the grid the next day when peak usage was seen, such as noon on a hot day.
No action was taken on the item and Jackson said currently they are not asking for tax abatements and do not qualify for federal incentives like solar and wind projects.