While Santa Clarita’s battery-energy storage facility in Canyon Country was recently the subject of safety talks, Acton residents are still hopeful they can keep one or more such projects from coming to their backyard.
Judge Curtis Kin has yet to rule on a third amended complaint in their fight, which was in court last week. A group of north L.A. County residents are suing Los Angeles County over its approval of Fullmark’s plan to add 300 megawatts to the grid using large lithium-ion batteries for storage.
The goal, according to the latest answer to the lawsuit, is to connect the facility with a 1-mile long, primarily underground intertie line to the Vincent Substation owned by Southern California Edison.
A representative for Fullmark did not respond to a request for comment for this story.
In response to the project’s approval, Acton residents complained to the county about how their rural community — about 7,500 people in roughly 100 square miles, per the lawsuit — was being targeted by multiple battery energy storage sites.
L.A. County 5th District Supervisor Kathryn Barger responded to the concerns in 2023 with a motion to create a formal process for reviewing energy-storage proposals.
It passed, but it wasn’t complete in time to address the original approval received by Hecate, which has since become Fullmark. A new ordinance for battery-energy storage facility approval has not yet been in front of the Board of Supervisors for review.
Barger said she heard residents’ concerns “loud and clear” in a statement back when she authored the motion in June 2023, but also said state laws are pushing for more of the projects.
“New laws and policies grant the state authority to select sites and environmentally clear the development of clean energy solutions — like battery energy storage systems — without local government and community input,” Barger said at the time. “I support pursuing sustainable energy solutions. However, I believe the development of these solutions should balance community impact and concerns with energy infrastructure hardening goals.”
Those concerns brought members of Save Our Rural Town, part of the coalition suing to stop the project, to Downtown Los Angeles on July 17.
Kin heard arguments from both sides of the BESS issue as case number 14 of 14 on the afternoon docket Thursday, said Ruthie Brock, one of Acton’s more vocal opponents of the Acton BESS projects.
After the hearing, Brock remained optimistic, but also concerned because plans circulating online indicate Humidor could be the beginning of what’s to come.
“Humidor BESS is just the first of numerous BESS facilities that the county believes it can ministerially approve in the same area of east Acton,” according to the lawsuit, referring to an approval process that doesn’t include a public hearing.
“Foreseeable BESS projects in east Acton have a combined generation capacity of more than 2,300 megawatts,” which is enough power for 2 million homes, according to the lawsuit.
“There is no question that the community of Acton will be substantially overburdened by the ‘negative environmental factors’ introduced by these,” per the lawsuit.
The lawsuits are concerned with the dangers associated with the potential for a fire at the battery facilities, which officials recently said were extremely difficult to extinguish, but also rare.
That was part of the discussion held in response to Santa Clarita residents’ concerns about a Canyon Country battery-energy storage facility near Soledad Canyon Road and Solemint.
The city hosted a Canyon Country Community Center meeting with one of the facility’s planners, Brian Fink, a fire consultant, and a pair of L.A. County fire officials, Assistant Fire Chief Pat Sprengel, and Josh Costello with the department’s code enforcement team.
The lithium-ion battery fires must be allowed to burn out when they catch fire, because firefighters aren’t able to safely use traditional means to extinguish them, according to Fink, a retired fire captain turned battery-energy storage consultant. Fink said the batteries used in utility energy storage were as safe as the ones that power electric cars and bicycles in the home.
Brock, who said she’s about 2 miles from where the Humidor project is being planned, wasn’t convinced by the hearing. She also shared a concern that the project could move forward while the lawsuit is pending, due to its county approvals. Although Kin also has the authority to send the project back to the drawing board.
In the Acton lawsuit, Kin has not released a tentative ruling, and he has up to 90 days to make his decision and then both sides would have 10 days to file a response.
“So that’s where we were (Thursday),” Brock said. “We’re encouraged by words that will get a fair ruling. So we’re happy that he didn’t rush a ruling.”
