22 MONTEREY COUNTY WEEKLY MARCH 27-APRIL 2, 2025 www.montereycountynow.com She said her family had been staying at two different AirBnB’s in Carmel since the fire, and that many could not be so lucky. Prunedale resident Shiree Goins was likewise laid out by the fire. On Jan. 21, her birthday, she woke up feeling dizzy and lightheaded, and had a splitting headache. She told her husband they had to leave the house the next day—they did, she said, staying at an AirBnB for two weeks before finding a new home. Goins said she’d been to numerous doctors, and that tests showed all her organs were functioning normally. To find out what was causing the symptoms, she was told, she’d need to see a toxicologist. “We are the canaries in the coal mine,” Goins said of herself and others with heightened sensitivity. “We are here with our symptoms, screaming out, but unfortunately, we’ve felt time and time again that nobody is listening, no one is hearing our cries.” On March 10, the Roeders and 50 other plaintiffs, including Goins, filed a lawsuit in Alameda County Superior Court against a number of defendants including Vistra, PG&E and LG Energy Solution, the manufacturer of the batteries at Moss 300. That followed a Feb. 4 lawsuit filed by four local residents against an identical group of defendants. On Feb. 27, Moss Landing residents Kim and Luis Solano, owners and proprietors of the Haute Enchilada restaurant in Moss Landing, which has shuttered in the wake of the fire, filed a federal lawsuit against a similar group of defendants, excluding PG&E. Moss Landing residents Sofia and Jonathan Vitale—Sofia is the Solanos’ daughter— filed a federal suit against the same defendants March 12. Vistra has declined to comment on the litigation. In the days after the fire, Church often referred to it as a “Three-Mile Island” type of event for the battery energy storage industry, one that would wake people up to its potential dangers. Given the reach the fire had in the media—it made news internationally— that may prove to be true, but the Moss 300 facility was hardly a reflection of the industry as a whole. Nick Warner, a battery safety expert, says less than 1 percent of battery storage facilities worldwide are in dedicated-use buildings—an indoor structure designed to house large-scale utility battery systems—and that Moss 300 was “globally unique in every way.” He bristles at the “Three-Mile Island” comparison, and believes a more apt one is the Hindenburg, as airships were already on their way out to make way for better, safer technology—airplanes. Indoor battery storage facilities are going the same way, he says, adding that Moss 300 was the only one that reused an existing building. Worldwide, “it had far and away the most capacity under one roof. It was an antiquated design and concept already being replaced by a newer and better way of doing things.” All the battery storage facilities in Moss Landing have been offline since the fire broke out, and there’s no clear timeline for when any of them will go back online. The focus now is to safely clean up the mess. De-linking the accessible batteries in Moss 300 was completed March 13; the remaining batteries in the structure are unsafe to access, so the risk for a re-ignition remains. On March 18, Scanlon, the county’s director of Emergency Services, presented an update to the Board of Supervisors about the progress on the site, and said the county was transitioning from the response phase into the recovery phase. “Debris removal of this quantity and complexity has never been done before,” she said. Cleanup of the site could take years. Already, the regulatory environment surrounding battery storage facilities in the state is starting to shift. On March 13, the five commissioners on the CPUC unanimously passed a resolution requiring all battery energy storage facilities to work with local authorities to create emergency response plans, or else face financial penalties. Assemblymember Dawn Addis, D-Morro Bay, introduced AB 303, which would bolster safety standards by creating environmental setbacks from sensitive sites like schools, as well as to restore local control in approving battery storage facilities—since AB 205 passed in 2022, those proposing new battery storage can opt to have the California Energy Commission take jurisdiction over the approval process. Vistra currently has a 600-megawatt BESS proposed in Morro Bay, and Vistra notified the city last October that it would be opting to have the Energy Commission consider approval of the project’s draft environmental impact report, not the city. (Also in Addis’ district is a potential 200-megawatt battery storage facility near Watsonville.) State Sen. John Laird, D-Santa Cruz, whose SB 38 was signed into law a year after the Elkhorn fire, had similar requirements to those the CPUC commissioner passed a few weeks ago, but it lacked the enforcement teeth. He put out a statement Feb. 4, noting that the CPUC was leading the investigation into the causes of the fire, while also emphasizing the critical importance battery energy storage has for the state’s transition toward renewable energy. “California battery storage produced 500 megawatts in 2019, growing to 13,300 megawatts now, with the goal of 52,000 megawatts by 2045,” he wrote. “In September 2022, when the electrical grid was on the verge of a blackout, battery storage put more energy online than Diablo Canyon’s nuclear power during a few key hours—and the power stayed on.” On March 20, Laird introduced SB 283, which would prevent the development of battery energy storage facilities in combustible buildings. Looking back at how Vistra’s Moss Landing projects were approved, it’s easy to poke holes at what was missed or not contemplated during the process. But the projects, in a rapidly evolving industry, had no precedent locally, and the planning commissioners were given nothing but assurances. At a Jan. 29, 2025 Planning Commission meeting, about two weeks after the fire, Diehl spoke about her vote back in 2019. “I just want to say one thing about the recent fire in Moss Landing, which is that as a person who voted for that facility, I was wrong,” she said. At the time, she had felt the safety discussions were extensive and the facility was safe. “I just want to put that on the record, because sometimes you’re wrong,” she said. When Goins, at the Never Again Moss Landing meeting, referred to people like herself as “canaries in the coal mine,” that was, in another sense, true for the entire Central Coast—it seems doubtful another indoor battery project like Moss 300 will ever again get approved, locally or anywhere else. And for an energy company, safer designs are also a safer investment. But whether the public likes it or not, battery energy storage is likely not going away—our demand for energy is only growing. And the alternatives to renewable—nuclear or fossil fuels—are untenable. Not to mention, Vistra got approval from the county in 2020 to build 1,200 more megawatts of storage in Moss Landing. And after Moss 100 and Moss 350, it still has approval to build 750 more megawatts. Since the fire, however, the company is waiting to see what the investigation finds. Whether Vistra follows through with its plan or not, battery energy storage facilities are likely the future—they store renewable energy, then feed it to the grid when the sun’s not shining or the wind’s not blowing. They are the missing link, and as the transition toward renewable energy continues to gain traction—in California and elsewhere— batteries will be leading the charge. “I get the feeling this battery storage system has enormous potential for grand-scale catastrophic failure with far-reaching, long-lasting impact.” The Monterey County Board of Supervisors held an emergency meeting at 8:30am on Friday, Jan. 17, the day after the Vistra fire ignited. All five supervisors (in background) attended a press conference in Castroville immediately afterward, where Kelsey Scanlon, the county’s director of Emergency Management, provided updates.
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