LA County
From the meeting · Regional Planning Commission, · 1:06
Is a 300-foot buffer enough for battery storage sites?
During a progress report, with no vote, on rewriting the county's renewable energy ordinance, a commissioner asks staff whether the draft's 300-foot separation between battery storage facilities and sensitive uses is enough, and how fires there are fought.
a commissioner and county staff
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Speech-to-text from the recording, unchecked.
a commissioner The prohibition of 300 feet from the sensitive use, is 300 feet enough?
a commissioner And and to back up that question, when I look at battery storage with what we're seeing with these fires, I'm concerned about 300 foot being sufficient and also what is the fire suppression.
a commissioner How are you utilizing fire suppression for these battery storage facilities only because we've seen they almost can't put them out.
a commissioner So I'm just curious as to how we're addressing that.
a commissioner Thank you very much.
a commissioner Thank you, mister chair.
county staff Yes.
county staff So for fire suppression, typically, the batteries need to be allowed to burn.
county staff So fire departments respond by cooling the batteries around them and limiting the fire to the enclosure that is experiencing the thermal runaway, the fire.
county staff As far as the distance, we relied on our technical study to make that recommendation in the draft ordinance.
county staff We have received a lot of comments, so we are evaluating alternatives to be considered in the program EIR.
Where it's from
- Update on rewriting the county's Renewable Energy Ordinance Item 9(a): what happened
- The episode: East LA truck yard approved; new county rules for battery storage take shape
- The full recording from here