Bruce County council heard a report on what municipalities should consider when looking at allowing battery storage facilities.
Warren Howard from the Multi-Municipal Energy Working Group spoke to council regarding Battery Energy Storage Systems, saying that proposed projects have to provide the right amount of power.
“For the duration of the project, it has to be able to provide, if it’s a storage project, up to 4 continuous hours. Contracts are for 20 years.”
There are about 35 active projects with around 6,000 MW.
Proponents have to offer to build and operate a facility, based on the size of the project in MW and the location.
Howard says that a main concern is the fire risk, and says that there have been instances in other countries where a facility has caught on fire, and required days of attention from firefighters to put out the blaze or allow the fire to burn itself out over several days.
There was a concern from Hydro One regarding the fire risk.
The risk is because the batteries contain flammable electrolytes, which can create hazards if the battery cell enters what’s referred to as thermal runaway.
According to the report, when a battery is in thermal runaway, large amounts of flammable and potentially toxic gases can be generated.
Those gases can include carbon monoxide, hydrofluoric acid, nitrogen dioxide, and hydrochloric acid, which can be highly corrosive and pose a threat to human health.
In the event of a fire that is attended by firefighters, water is used to put out the blaze. However, when putting water onto the batteries, or letting them combine with the chemicals, explosions can occur.
“Hydro One got quite concerned because they have facilities adjacent to these things, and they said there’s a substantial fire risk here. and they hired some consultants from the [United States] and published in mid-November standards the proponents have to meet before they’re going to be allowed to connect to the grid.”
Howard says that municipalities have the right to decline support for the projects.
He says that other things to consider include the fact that the technology is rapidly evolving, and there is limited direction from the province for how to best proceed.
The Multi-Municipal Energy working group is a team of municipal representatives who were originally focused on wind turbines, before expanding their focus this year to include battery energy storage systems.