Implications of the Moss Battery Plant Fire

Roger Caiazza

Yesterday Charles Rotter described the fire at the Moss Landing Battery Plant that was big enough to trigger evacuations.  I think it is appropriate to consider the implications of this fire on the PEAK Coalition report Accelerate Now! The Fossil Fuel End Game 2.0 that described their plan to “address harmful and racially disproportionate health impacts of the city’s peaker plants by replacing them with renewable energy and energy storage solutions.” 

Overview

The PEAK coalition has stated that “Fossil peaker plants in New York City are perhaps the most egregious energy-related example of what environmental injustice means today.”  The influence of this position on current New York State environmental policy has led to this issue finding its way into multiple environmental initiatives. I have prepared a summary of this issue that explains why the presumption of egregious harm is based on selective choice of metrics, poor understanding of air quality health impacts,  and ignorance of air quality trends. 

Peak Coalition and Battery Storage

The Accelerate Now! The Fossil Fuel End Game 2.0 report concludes that “The pace of renewable energy, energy storage, and transmission development must increase.”  The following energy storage recommendations were made:

• The most immediate and pressing step is to address the short-term reliability challenges that led NYISO to issue reliability must-run scenarios for the Gowanus and Narrows peaker plants. Governor Hochul must direct key decision-makers to fund and develop transmission and energy storage assets before May 2025 in order to minimize or eliminate the use of these peaker plants.
• NYPA must be held accountable for the linked mandate to phase out their peaker plants in New York City and Long Island by accelerating the process of issuing, evaluating, awarding, and developing battery storage projects at the sites.
• NYSERDA can and must develop new large-scale and community-led renewable energy and energy storage projects in an expedient manner and prioritize applications that will transition fossil fuel operations or develop distributed energy resources capacity.
• Local leaders can play a significant role in educating the public on issues such as developing responsible solutions to address safety concerns without overburdening renewable energy and battery storage development due to misinformation.

Clean Energy Group prepared the report and facilitated a webinar entitled “Replacing NYC’s Peaker Plants with Clean Alternatives: Progress, Barriers, and Pathways Forward” on February 6, 2024, that  discussed battery storage.  Victor Davila, Community Organizer, THE POINT CDC included the following slide in his presentation that demands that battery storage replace peaking power plants.

Replacing NYC’s Peaker Plants with Clean Alternatives: Progress, Barriers, and Pathways Forward

Megan Carr, Skadden Fellow – Environmental Justice Program, New York Lawyers for the Public Interest talked about regulatory barriers including those for battery storage.  She illustrated her comments with the following slide.

Replacing NYC’s Peaker Plants with Clean Alternatives: Progress, Barriers, and Pathways Forward

 Regarding battery storage she said:

I want to talk about regulatory barriers.  There are real challenges to developing battery storage in New York City.  The city has additional codes and safety standards beyond the state standards when it comes to siting battery storage.  FDNY has a site-specific approval process for every potential energy development.  There are set back and clearance requirements that limit the possibility of rooftop solar across the city.  There are fire code regulations that continue to prevent lithium-ion batteries from being installed indoors and the second use of lithium-ion batteries is banned in New York City.  These limitations stem from real safety concerns.  We’ve all been horrified by the deadly e-bike fires that we’ve read about in the news.  To increase energy storage development in New York City without sacrificing safety we need greater education for the public and policymakers alike that looks at the nuance between different types of battery storage and does not just fear monger in the public about the risk of storage. 

Time Out

The literal poster child for the Peak Coalition proposal is the Rise Light & Power Renewable Ravenswood initiative, a plan to transition Ravenswood Generating Station into a clean energy hub. The following slide from the presentation includes a picture of the Ravenswood facility.  The plan involves the replacement of Ravenwood’s remaining peaking capacity with “a mix of offshore wind, upstate renewables, district heating, and large-scale battery storage”. 

Replacing NYC’s Peaker Plants with Clean Alternatives: Progress, Barriers, and Pathways Forward

A couple of years ago I put together a substantive post that discussed battery energy storage system (BESS) concerns.  I concluded that these systems must overcome space constraint issues and are not proven technology.  When a leading expert on batteries says: “Everybody has to be educated how to use these batteries safely”, I think the best course of action is to follow his advice.  It is not appropriate to make the residents of the disadvantaged communities near a BESS become unwilling lab rats to test whether a technology that can generate toxic gases, fires, and explosions is appropriate in an urban setting.  I am sure Ms. Carr believes that article is “fear mongering the public about the risk of storage”.

At the risk of further fear mongering, I think it is appropriate to consider what would happen if there was a fire at Ravenswood. The Vistra Moss Landing Energy Storage Facility is the largest lithium battery energy storage system in the world, located in Moss Landing, California. It has a total capacity of 750 MW and 3,000 MWh, providing critical support to California’s electricity grid.  On January 16, 2025 a fire was reported at the facility shortly after 3 PM.  Mercury News reported that:

Fire Chief Joel Mendoza of the North County Fire Protection said at a Friday morning press conference said the fire had died down significantly by 8:30 a.m., down from its peak about 12 hours earlier.  The evacuations remained in place at 11 a.m. for about 1,200 residents

According to the Mercury News “Flames and smoke in the community of Moss Landing and the Elkhorn Slough area in northern Monterey County largely were just smoldering late Friday morning following a major fire at a battery storage plant that brought evacuations.”  Despite a flareup early Friday afternoon evacuations orders were lifted Friday night albeit health officials still advised residents to limit outdoor exposure and to keep doors and windows closed until further notice.

I understand that the fire was in the 300-megawatt four hour storage  Phase I energy storage facility and reports indicated that 75% of the facility had burned.  The nearby Tesla storage facility was unharmed.

This is the third fire at the facility in the last three years.  They evacuated 8 square miles and closed a major highway.  What would happen in New York City if there was a fire at the poster child storage facility.

New York City Battery Storage Fire Impacts

Richard Ellenbogen saved me from having to figure out the impacts.  The following quotations are lightly edited comments from an email he sent to me.

The Moss Landing Battery Plant fire is burning at a temperature of between 2500 – 5000 degrees Fahrenheit.   From reports, the fire encompasses 75% of the 300 MW facility.  Assuming a 4 MW battery fits in a 40-foot sea container sized package, there are about 56 sea container sized units on fire.  The first responders did not get close enough to the fire to fight it because a lot of the water sprayed on it would likely turn to steam before it hit the batteries.  Lithium battery fires turn water that does come into contact with them into hydrogen and oxygen.  Explosive fuel, an oxidizer, and heat sources aren’t a great combination.  At $400 per Kilowatt-hour, that is $90 million in damage for the 225 Megawatts that are burning, not counting cleanup costs. 

Please explain to me how the technology can qualify as zero emission.  Not to mention that any water sprayed on it would carry heavy metals and other toxins into the ground or into Monterey Bay.  In addition to the ridiculous cost of the storage and the short lifespan, this has been one of my arguments against these facilities for years.

This fire has further implications for use in New York City.  At Moss Landing, there are 7676 acres under evacuation with only 1214 people living there.  At 640 acres per square mile, that is 12 square miles.  It is a circle with a radius of about two miles, much of which is over the Pacific Ocean.  The following figure shows the area around the plant.

They are building a similar sized storage facility using the same technology at the Ravenswood Power Plant in Queens.  It is not clear that anything can be done to make it any safer than the Moss Landing Plant.  A similar fire there would require at least a shelter in place order and possibly an evacuation order for nearly a million people to say nothing about shutting down highways and the East River. The Ravenswood location is the Red Stick Pin on Vernon Blvd. across the East River from Roosevelt Island shown below. 

The average population density of NY City is 30,000 people per square mile.  It is the most densely populated city in the United States, except that figure also includes less densely populated areas in the outer boroughs.  The average population density of Manhattan is 73,000 people per square mile and a 12 Square mile evacuation zone would cover some of the most densely populated areas of Queens, Brooklyn, and Manhattan.  The evacuation zone would cover most of the map shown.   Two miles from Ravenswood extends to the West Side of Central Park due west, southwest to the Empire State building on 33rd Street and 5th Avenue, all of the East side of Manhattan above 30th Street up to 106th Street, and Queens and Brooklyn from the RFK Bridge down to Greenpoint.  That is the entire area circled by Routes 278 and 495.  Those are the Brooklyn Queens Expressway and the Long Island Expressway, roads that are notorious for being parking lots on a normal day. 

What would happen during a battery fire mass evacuation that could also potentially impact the utility system and mass transit in a worst-case scenario, eliminating subways as a viable means of egress?  Grand Central Station would also fall within a 2 mile radius evacuation zone so would Metro North trains be able to operate?  What contamination would enter the East River during a similar fire at Ravenswood?  How many people would die in an evacuation like that from heart attacks, being crushed in a crowd or run over by vehicles, and how many other types of accidents that could occur in an evacuation of that size?  A 2 mile evacuation zone would also include all of the hospitals between  60th Street and 70th Street near the East River including Sloan Kettering and Weill- Cornell, and also NYU Langone Medical Center on 34th Street and the East River.  How would those facilities be evacuated?

Conclusion

The Peak Coalition demands that regulators “allow community governance in renewable energy and battery storage”.  I worry that addressing this constraint distracts from the complex issues involved with peaking power plant needs and fire safety mandates.

When Ms. Carr talked about the Fire Department of New York response to energy storage permitting her voice suggested that she did not agree with their requirements.   Even though she acknowledged that their “limitations stem from real safety concerns” she said: “To increase energy storage development in New York City without sacrificing safety we need greater education for the public and policymakers alike that looks at the nuance between different types of battery storage and does not just fear monger in the public about the risk of storage.”  These fires have implications for this recommendation.

The Peak Coalition has a very narrow focus that is based almost entirely on emotion.  Most importantly, they have no accountability when they disparage the agencies and organizations that are responsible for environmental protection, electric system reliability, and in this case, fire hazards.  In my previous article I concluded that we should follow the advice of experts who say: “Everybody has to be educated how to use these batteries safely”.  Given the experience of Moss Landing, I think it is fair to ask if they can be operated safely and would it be prudent to delay implementation until that can be shown. 

The alleged impacts of air pollution from peaking power plants pale in comparison to the disastrous direct and indirect impacts of a battery energy storage fire.  Those risks must be considered as the energy transition implementation plan is rolled out.  Crossing fingers and hoping that a fire will not happen is a prescription for disaster.

Roger Caiazza blogs on New York energy and environmental issues at Pragmatic Environmentalist of New York.  This represents his opinion and not the opinion of any of his previous employers or any other organization with which he has been associated.