Energy company planning to add 307-acre battery storage facility
LANCASTER — AES Clean Energy will add a 48-megawatt battery storage facility on approximately five acres within an existing 307acre 50-megawatt photovoltaic solar facility in Antelope Acres.
The facility is generally bounded by avenues G and F and 95th and 100th streets west. The Planning Commission approved a Conditional Use Permit for the solar facility for sPower, in January 2017. (sPower has since merged with AES.)
At the time, area residents voiced their concerns about dust, a loss of open space, the potential for Valley fever and also declining property values. The decision was appealed. The City Council, in March 2017, upheld the Planning Commission approval.
On Monday, the Planning Commission voted 4-1, with commissioners King Moore II and Daniel Tufts absent and Vice Chairperson Cassandra Harvey dissenting, to approve an amendment to the Conditional Use Permit to allow for the development of the battery storage facility.
“The project before us tonight is in effect an administrative adjustment to the environmental document,”
Commission Chairman James Vose said.
He added the initial environmental documents indicated battery storage would be a part of the project.
Resident Jennifer Bailey, a 49year resident of the Antelope Valley, moved to Antelope Acres to “get away from everybody and everything.”
“I have now been surrounded by solar fields,” Bailey said.
She lives about one and a quarter miles north of the proposed development.
Bailey is concerned about fire hazards. There was a fire, in April 2019, in a switching station near her house. That fire burned out because the Los Angeles County Fire Department could not respond, Bailey said.
She has also put out three fires with her tractor, she said.
“We’re now going to put this closer to our homes,” Bailey said. “I’m opposing it, and I want to know what their mitigation plan is for fires and how you’re going to protect my property.
“We definitely recognize the fire concerns, especially in a high-wind area,” Dallas Pugh, permitting manager in charge of the project for AES Clean Energy, said.
The Los Angeles County Fire Department requires the company to have a 10,000 tank at the entrance of each of its facilities.
“Unfortunately, with a lot of these electrical burns, obviously water and the electrical fires don’t mix very well,” Pugh said. “So a lot of the equipment is designed in a way to let it burn out before it spreads any further.”
In addition, the 10,000 gallon tanks are there to protect nearby vegetation and to prevent the fire from spreading.
Commissioner Leslie Underwood asked Pugh what they can do to prevent sparks from a battery fire from spreading to other parcels.
The battery units have self-contained fire suppression systems designed to burn out and not spread.
“I’m a 100% disabled veteran,” Bailey said. “I finally got into a place where I was comfortable. … I look at my property now, I am now in the middle of a power grid and you guys want to tax the hell out of me. You guys got to give somewhere, you got to give somewhere; you’ve got to quit taking from us.”
Harvey, who voted against the conditional use permit, in 2017, said the same concerns were raised, five years ago.
“Is there anything that you’re organization is looking at in order to make the residents out there feel a little bit more at ease?” Harvey asked.
Pugh said they do try to reach out with community benefits to see what they can bring to the community when they build there such as road improvements.
The Antelope Acres Town Council sent a letter to the Planning Commission saying they were not notified of Monday’s public hearing in a timely manner to submit a response. They asked for a continuance.
However, Community Development Manager Larissa De La Cruz said they met the legal obligation within the 10-day noticing timeline.
“It’s no secret that there’s been a lot of angst with the solar coming in and with all due respect, I don’t know of a better way to say it, but a lot of Antelope Acres feels that as Lancaster is giving us the middle finger,” Antelope Acres resident Joshua Murphy said.
Murphy, also a 100% disabled veteran, moved to Antelope Acres for to seek peace and healing.
“Much of the solar construction and the trucks and the construction and the fires have stolen that from us,” he said. He added the fires at the facilities are also concerning.
Murphy asked to know what they are breathing when a fire breaks out at one of the facilities and how AES will be a better neighbor than sPower.
The AES Clean Energy site in particular has not had any fires in the five years it has been there, De La Cruz said.
In addition, there have not been any fires at solar facilities within the city’s jurisdiction. Murphy has been involved with representation with the community off and on for the past five or six years.