Battery Energy Storage Systems and solar energy need each other, but not everyone wants them in their neighborhoods. The risk of fires that are hard to extinguish are giving residents pause. Listen to Northeast Notebook podcast episodes, published every weekday by 5 p.m. wherever you listen to podcasts!
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Annie Bennett: This is WAMC's Northeast Notebook. I'm Annie Bennett, your host today. As New York transitions from fossil fuels towards solar and other renewables, where to keep all that energy is a question that small communities like New Scotland in New York are confronting. Take battery energy storage systems, also known as BESS.
Nancy Cobb: I want to know who needs it, who's benefiting from it, and what it's going to do for us as a community.
Annie Bennett: New York needs to store thousands of megawatts of power in these systems, but how they're sited and where they're located has some residents on edge.
Melissa Hale-Spencer: People don't like things in their backyard that they're unfamiliar with and can be dangerous.
Annie Bennett: Today's program, BESS Practices? Wayne Melton was the chief of the Orange County HAZMAT unit in 2023. He remembers a call he got that December.
Wayne Melton: I heard Warwick get summoned to that location somewhere around 8:30-ish in the morning for an active battery energy storage fire. So I immediately knew I was gonna be called to the scene, so I started heading that way.
And, uh, when the incident commander got there, uh, he immediately called for HAZMAT. So from there, I got on scene and knew that this was gonna burn for more than the normal duration of a fire.
Annie Bennett: With a goal of developing 6,000 megawatts of storage capacity by 2030, New York is building out its infrastructure.
Right now, it has 53 BESS facilities. Six of them opened in 2025. Melissa Hale-Spencer is the editor of the Altamont Enterprise and has been covering the topic in Albany County.
Melissa Hale-Spencer: In order for solar energy to work for New York's transition to green energy, there needs to be a way to store solar energy. New York, they set goals that are not attainable because of local opposition.
Why? People don't like things in their backyard that they're unfamiliar with and can be dangerous.
Annie Bennett: Residents of the rural community of New Scotland are divided over a proposed BESS facility.
Stacy DiMura: When we first heard about it, we were shocked because this is a residential neighborhood.
Annie Bennett: That's Stacy DiMura, who leads the Not in Our BESS Interest committee.
Stacy DiMura: We're asking to find a place that's better suited and a place that's not putting our, our health at risk, that doesn't risk contaminating our wells, contaminating our air, um, lowering the value of our properties, putting our firefighters at risk.
Annie Bennett: There is growing opposition to these facilities, and that's threatening to slow build-out.
Hale-Spencer says some states have an easier time initiating projects like this, since they only have to be approved at the state level. But in New York, there's something called home rule.
Melissa Hale-Spencer: The key is because New York is a home rule state, it has more people objecting in individual villages, towns, counties across the state, and there was a wrinkle for BESS.
Annie Bennett: Home rule means that each municipality has autonomy over things like this. It's not up to the state whether BESS gets built, rather it's the people in each town and for every proposal that decide.
Melissa Hale-Spencer: So all these individual places, you have to go through the regular hearing process.
Annie Bennett: Now, while some are worried about what happens if something goes wrong, Wayne Melton, the former Orange County HAZMAT chief, says there's a lot of misinformation out there.
Wayne Melton: Well, it's my opinion that it is relatively safe because the frequency upon which you have these battery energy storage fires is kind of similar to the chances of you winning the Powerball.
Annie Bennett: But just to clarify, you know, if th- since they're as, so rare, but you had two in the same town within two years of each other, is that right?
Wayne Melton: Uh, yes. Yes, we did. It was the same system. That battery company, the one who also manufactured that cabinetry and the batteries, is no longer in business.
Annie Bennett: So fires at lithium ion BESS facilities can burn for more than a week.
Wayne Melton: You have a very, very small chance of having an actual fire in these systems because of all the steps that you need to achieve and before you can turn the system on, so to speak.
So there's a lot of hoops that need to be jumped through and completed successfully in order for these systems to operate.
Annie Bennett: Melton explained that firefighters' approach to lithium fires is to let them burn. And while that sounds alarming, he says it is effective as long as officers are properly trained.
The volunteer fire department in Voorheesville, a village within New Scotland, is responsible for the land the proposed storage facility would be built on. The New Scotland Planning Board noted that the volunteers opposed the proposal, in part because of a lack of emergency response training. But Melton says that that shouldn't be a concern.
Wayne Melton: The company that is gonna be operating the system must train the fire department, the authority having jurisdiction, on tactics for handling an emergency situation involving the battery energy storage system. New York State requires an eight-hour class.
Annie Bennett: And the New York State Energy Research and Development Authority does offer a guidebook for local governments about BESS safety. New York Governor Kathy Hochul signed a law in 2023 to establish what's called the Interagency Fire Safety Working Group. Still, advocates are concerned about fire risk.
Again, here's Stacey DiMura from the Not In Our BESS Interest Committee.
Stacy DiMura: Then when we learned what was inside these containers, lithium-ion batteries, and we started to do more research, we, we found out that, uh, there's been a lot of fires. In fact, in 2025, this exact piece of equipment, Tesla Megapacks with this, um, same type of battery, LFP, they started on fire.
At one of the sites, a second Tesla Megapack started on fire, and when they start on fire, they release toxins, a lot of really bad toxins. And we're all on well water, so one of our big concerns is that this, these toxins, uh, fall to the ground, and then they get into our groundwater, and then get into our drinking water.
Annie Bennett: There's a lot of confusion about the risks of lithium-ion storage facilities. We went to the Altamont Fair, just down the road from New Scotland, to see what fairgoers thought.
Kurt Siegel: As a retired firefighter, I understand they've had problems with it because you can't put out a lithium fire easily.
Annie Bennett: That's Kurt Siegel.
I spoke with him and his wife, Nancy Cobb, and their opinion seems to be pretty common.
Nancy Cobb: I want more information. I wanna know who needs it, who's benefiting from it, and what it's going to do for us as a community.
Stacy DiMura: We're not sure why this site was chosen. It doesn't seem to make any sense.
Annie Bennett: So I asked Melissa Hale-Spencer from the Altamont Enterprise.
So why is the company aiming to have this in a residential area if they would get less pushback elsewhere?
Melissa Hale-Spencer: They need to be near the power lines, and you can only have so many on a, a particular line to carry that energy. Once you got enough clean energy online, I think not only would you be helping the environment, but I think you'd be stabilizing, you know, energy prices.
Annie Bennett: But it's not that the residents object to renewable energy or even the contraptions themselves. It's really all about location.
Stacy DiMura: Our whole neighborhood is actually a proponent of battery energy storage system in general, and solar in general.
Kurt Siegel: The great thing about solar power is it works. I mean, for me, we've got, we've had solar panels on our roof for years, and I'd love to have a solar storage battery, but I know that the battery storage facilities are a lot different.
Annie Bennett: Still, Wayne Mountain says it's just not as simple as finding a new location, and if New York is going to reach its climate goals, something has to change.
Wayne Melton: The grid. The grid is old. The grid is maxed out. Our infrastructure is old. It's not getting younger. We're not building new p- power plants. We're, we're gonna have to figure this out, and this is a solution.
I don't think it's the end-all be-all, but for the problem we're facing right now, this is a solution for now.
Annie Bennett: But because of home rule, the New Scotland project is stuck unless the developers can sway the public.
Melissa Hale-Spencer: And one of the things that the planning board chairman of New Scotland said is, "We will not do this unless we have enough water to fight fires if there is one."
The town of New Scotland wrote to the neighboring town of Guilderland to see if they could run a water line. At the last town board meeting, uh, they were told, "No way." Without that water, it looks like that project probably won't go forward.
Annie Bennett: Northeast Notebook is a production of WAMC Northeast Public Radio. Our editor is Diane DeVore. Our executive producer is Lucas Willard. Music by Eduardo Rivera. Consider subscribing to Northeast Notebook wherever you get your podcasts. And hey, if you like the show, take a second to rate and review. It really does help others find us.
And today's show was produced and hosted by me, Annie Bennett. Thanks for listening.
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