![]() ![]() ![]() Board member Steve Nash said there is not much public awareness of the project, especially given the safety risks. The Bel Marin Keys Community Services District’s governing board is planning to hold a discussion on the project at its meeting at 7:30 p.m. Turner said many of the concerns raised by the public about the environment and public safety will be addressed as part of the environmental review and through requirements of the state fire code. The project would require about 165,000 cubic yards of fill to elevate the facility, which is enough to fill roughly 16,500 dump trucks. The facility would be built on a 12-acre section of the 134-acre parcel and would be elevated 10-11 feet to be out of the floodplain. The project will require the county to approve a zoning change at the parcel, which is zoned for bay conservation. Residents have said that the project would be better suited to an industrial area, but Turner said the location was the only viable one. The proposed location for the battery facility was chosen given its proximity to PG&E’s Ignacio substation, which Turner said is the most important substation in Marin and the only one that would be able to handle the amount of electricity proposed to be stored at the site. Turner said Terra-Gen hopes to have the facility up and running by 2026 but said it could take a couple more years. “It will eventually go to the Board of Supervisors but not for a while,” Alton said. The county will then need to conduct an environmental review of the project - a process that could potentially take more than a year to complete - before it can be considered for approval. The project application was submitted in January and is still in the early stages of the county review process, said county planner Megan Alton.Ĭounty agencies and the Novato Fire District have requested further information from Terra-Gen for its application. “The fact that they’re considering any development here is really unconscionable and I really don’t understand how it was able to get this far,” said Vincent Lattanzio, president of the Bel Marin Keys Community Services District board. “Our purpose is to get organized early so that we’re prepared to fight this tooth and nail to the end and to make sure that it is not built here on wetlands,” Pollack said. ![]() Residents have also expressed concern about public safety, given past incidents of fires or explosions at other lithium-ion battery storage sites in the country. However, she and many residents think the proposed location on a floodplain and wetlands currently designated for conservation is entirely inappropriate. Residents in Bel Marin Keys and Hamilton are already organizing to challenge the project as it makes its way through the county review process.īel Marin Keys resident Linda Pollack said she is not opposed to battery storage projects. “The good news is whenever you install a battery storage facility in the local area - in this case, Marin County - it significantly benefits the reliability of the grid in that local area,” Turner said. The batteries also can be used to provide electric reliability during power shutoffs by Pacific Gas & Electric Co. Turner, a Mill Valley resident, said the facility would be able to store energy generated from renewable sources such as solar and wind during the day and use the power at night. The lithium-ion batteries at the site would be capable of storing and delivering 300 megawatts of electricity for about four hours, or enough energy to power roughly 300,000 homes in the North Bay, said Mark Turner, Terra-Gen’s vice president. Terra-Gen, which is based in New York and California, is proposing to build the facility just west of Bel Marin Keys near the Highway 101-Highway 37 interchange in Novato. A renewable energy company is proposing to build the largest battery storage facility in Marin County to advance the state’s clean energy goals and provide reliability during outages. ![]()
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