Vacaville Moves to Block Lithium-Ion Battery Storage Projects

(TNS) — The Vacaville City Council voted unanimously on Tuesday to pass an ordinance that aims to severely limit Battery Energy Storage Systems (BESS) in the city, culminating a year-long effort on the issue.

Since the last council discussion of the ordinance, city staff updated it to disallow Lithium-ion battery chemistry in the city. Multiple BESS projects in the area are already working their way through the California Energy Commission’s AB 205 alternate permitting pathway, which would supersede the city’s ordinance if approved.

Senior Planner Albert Enault said the city received a Technology Assessment for BESS from consultants at Larsen and Toubroo in December. That report argued that Vanadium Redox Flow Batteries (VRFB) could be used in the community rather than the Lithium-Ion batteries that community members have expressed safety concerns about.

The ordinance retains only one parcel of land that non-lithium-based BESS projects would be allowed on: The Former Gibson Canyon Creek Wastewater Treatment Plant. The council voted not to extend an ENRA with Menard Energy for a project that would have constructed BESS on that parcel in 2024, citing concerns that the site was too close to neighborhoods and a hospital.

Staff also increased setbacks from 300 feet to 500 feet for sensitive uses and will require a financial assurance plan from BESS companies.

Derek Johnson, speaking on behalf of Sarah Dunn from Keep Vacaville Safe, urged the council to vote yes on the ordinance.

“It represents years of careful work by the city staff, residents and this council to understand the benefits, risks and long-term impacts of large-scale lithium-ion BESS facilities in Vacaville,” he said. “It reflects a balanced, common-sense framework, one that protects public safety and environmental quality while still encouraging innovation and welcoming safer, next-generation energy storage technologies.”

Johnson said the community supports energy storage for grid reliability and added the city’s proximity to the Vaca Dixon Substation makes it a target for BESS companies.

“What we cannot support are technologies that carry well-documented hazards to air, land and water when safer commercially available and longer duration alternatives exist,” he said.

Mayor John Carli reiterated that it has taken Vacaville several years to get to this point in the process. He noted the county’s ordinance and the city’s work with Larsen and Tuboro as helpful in crafting the ordinance.

“We have done this alongside of you,” he said to the public. “We have not done this in a vacuum. It really is a testimony to those who have come forward.”

Carli noted that the city owns the land identified in the ordinance for BESS, but also acknowledged that the CEC has the ultimate authority on the issue. He said he hopes that the ordinance will put the city “in the driver’s seat” regarding the technology used.

“The CEC actually controls some of these sitings, but it is important for us as a city, in my view, to be able to have a robust and durable policy and ordinance that says ‘we are not against it.’”

Councilmember Roy Stockton also praised the ordinance and thanked Dunn and other community members for their work on the issue.

“This is perhaps one of the boldest and most courageous ordinances that I have seen surrounding battery energy storage systems and lithium-ion concerns,” he said.

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