BESS Debate: Southampton Extends Battery Energy Storage Moratorium

East End lawmakers recently approved the latest in a series of local moratoriums prohibiting the construction of battery energy storage systems (BESS) amid growing concerns about the safety of such utility-grade facilities.

The Southampton Town Board voted July 23 to extend the townwide moratorium on the construction of BESS facilities for another six months, weeks before the moratorium was set to expire August 13. The Town of Southold extended its 12-month BESS moratorium in March and is reviewing its BESS committee recommendations issued in April. The Town of Riverhead enacted a three-month moratorium in November.

“We are deeply disappointed and concerned that the Southampton Town Council voted to extend the moratorium on BESS, which are a critical component of the state’s clean energy transition and are key to ensuring we have a grid that is as reliable as it is robust,” the New York League of Conservation Voters said in a statement. “Six-months is prudent; 18 months is clearly stonewalling. This harmful delay strategy puts at serious risk the clean energy benefits that would come from BESS projects.”

BESS facilities, which are also used to store electricity generated by solar producers, are part of New York State’s plan to promote clean energy such as the South Fork Wind project and Sunrise Wind, which recently got the greenlight to begin construction. The facilities use lithium batteries that are highly reactive and can produce severe, toxic fires that are challenging to extinguish, creating significant risks for local firefighters. The Town of Southampton originally enacted its moratorium on February 13, 2023 after a lithium-ion battery storage facility fire in East Hampton in 2023.

Southampton residents also continued to voiced their safety concerns regarding a proposed 100-megawatt BESS facility proposed on a five-acre site by Canal Southampton Battery Storage LLC, which requested special exemption. That debate took up half of a four-hour-long town board meeting.

Keith Archer, of Harras Bloom & Archer represented Canal Southampton Battery Storage LLC’s, and addressed safety related claims.

“All of these questions and claims can be addressed with facts,” said Archer, who cited research by the Electric Power Research Institute that between 2012 and 2024 there have been only 19 fire incidents recorded relating to all large-scale battery operating facilities in the United States, some of which were during product testing.

Residents countered that heavy traffic on North Road in Hampton Bays would prevent emergency personnel from reaching the location quickly.

“I have to deal every day with the traffic on North Road and it is impossible,” Jeanne Brophy, a Hampton Bays resident who lives near the site, said. “They must think that if something goes wrong it’s going to be in the middle of the night because you cannot get from Hampton Bays to Southampton so I don’t know when the fire trucks would be able to come.”

In addition to town-level moratoriums, New York State’s Inter-Agency Fire Safety Working Group issued 15 recommendations in February that focus on grid-scale BESS facilities with capacity of more than 600 kilowatt-hours (kWh). The State Code Council will consider the recommendations in the next edition of the state fire code.

Recommendations included requiring industry-funded independent peer reviews for all projects during the permitting process, removing the exemption for fire code compliance for BESS facilities owned and operated by electrical utilities, requiring closed-circuit television systems to enable continuous monitoring of such facilities, ensuring that battery management system data is monitored by a 24/7-staffed network operations center and expanding the requirement for “explosion control” to include BESS cabinets, in addition to rooms, areas and walk-in units. The recommendations also questioned whether water was the best option for firefighters trying to extinguish lithium-ion battery fires and suggested further study of that issue. That is because of the extremely high temperature at which lithium-ion battery fires burn.

Nicholas Petrakis, Engineer with Energy Safety Response Group, addressed the proposed fire code changes.

“Canal Southampton Project is going above and beyond promise to comply with as well as all of the minimum base requirements,” Petrakis said, noting that it is located 300 feet from the nearest residential area.

“To come up here and say ‘someone said this wasn’t a residential area,’ Mr. Petrakis, this is a residential area. There are a lot of homes around and we have a lot of people that are homebound,” Kristin Mielenhausen, a resident of Hampton Bays, said. “It’s audacious what’s going on here.”

On a smaller scale, consumer products use lithium-ion batteries, including electric vehicles, cellphones and computers, toys, appliances and more, according to the Environmental Protection Agency. Lithium-ion batteries are different from alkaline batteries as lithium-ion batteries are rechargeable — but while some lithium-ion batteries tend to be safer, those involved in explosive fires often have design flaws, physical damage, overcharging and other issues.

A new option may come online in the not-too-distant future. On the same day as the Southampton debate, Gov. Kathy Hochul announced that the state will receive U.S. Department of Energy funding for a long-duration energy storage demonstration project being developed upstate that will use fire-safe battery technology instead of lithium ion batteries. The technology can be used in urban and rural settings to demonstrate a stable energy supply during periods of high demand and in extreme weather conditions, she said. It is capable of delivering electricity for 10–24 hours, surpassing the conventional short-duration systems that lithium-ion can typically support, she added.

“By supporting leading-edge projects — such as these installations that provide extended storage duration — we will validate new technologies and illustrate how grid storage can be safely and effectively integrated into communities throughout the state,” the governor said.