Latest news with #PacificGas&Electric
Yahoo
15-05-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
PG&E plans to reopen lithium battery plant near Monterey County site burned in toxic fire
Four months after a massive fire ignited in Monterey County at one of the world's largest lithium-ion battery storage facilities, Pacific Gas & Electric said it intends to reactivate an adjacent battery site by June to meet summer energy demands. The plan comes over the objections of county officials who requested that both facilities remain offline until the cause of the January fire in rural Moss Landing is determined. "I had hoped that PG&E would take a more transparent and collaborative approach in addressing the concerns of our surrounding communities, which are still grappling with the fallout of the largest BESS [battery energy storage system] fire in history," Monterey County Supervisor Glenn Church wrote on Facebook on May 8. "Restarting operations before investigations are complete and before stronger emergency protocols are in place is disappointing and deeply troubling," he said. The PG&E facility is one of two battery energy storage systems at the Moss Landing power complex near Monterey Bay. The other is owned by Texas-based Vistra Corp. The batteries store excess energy generated during the day and release it into the power grid during times of high demand, including evening hours. Both facilities have been offline since Jan. 16, when a Vistra-owned building containing 99,000 LG battery modules caught fire, spewing toxic gases into the air and prompting the evacuation of some 1,500 people. The adjacent Elkhorn Battery Energy Storage Facility — which is owned by PG&E and maintained by both the utility company and Tesla — did not burn. But it automatically shut down when its safety equipment detected the fire in the Vistra building. The Elkhorn energy storage facility includes 256 stationary Tesla Megapacks — essentially shipping container-sized units filled with battery modules. The Megapacks, according to PG&E, stand on 33 concrete slaps at the Elkhorn facility. In a May 7 letter to Chris Lopez, chairman of the Monterey County Board of Supervisors, PG&E vice presidents Dave Gabbard and Teresa Alvarado said "Tesla and PG&E have performed extensive inspection and clean-up" at the Elkhorn Facility and intend to restart it by June 1. After the fire, each of the Megapacks was disassembled and vacuum-cleaned, and environmental monitoring was conducted on and around the site, Gabbard and Alvarado wrote. "The Elkhorn Facility, as constructed, allows for efficient storage and use of power," they wrote. "As summer approaches, that power is necessary to effectively manage the demands of the California power grid and to protect PG&E's customers from power limitations and related impacts." A PG&E statement provided to The Times said: "We understand that the safety and well-being of our community is of utmost importance." The battery facility, the statement reads, provides "cost savings for electric customers" and helps "support the state's decarbonization goals." In his May 8 Facebook post, Church, whose district includes Moss Landing, wrote that the Board of Supervisors on Jan. 22 sent a letter to PG&E and Vistra requesting that their facilities not return to operation until 'the cause of the Vistra fire, as well as a previous fire at the PG&E battery storage facility, are determined and appropriately addressed.' Read more: 'Horrifying' fire at California lithium battery plant sparks calls for new clean energy rules That letter, he wrote, also requested that both companies develop "robust emergency response plans — based on a 'catastrophic worst-case scenario' involving full facility conflagration" for the county and other relevant agencies to review. Although emergency response plans are required by law, he added, existing state standards "are limited in scope and do not provide the level of detail or realism" that county officials needed to ensure public safety. "In previous discussions, PG&E indicated that a return to service would not occur until much later this year or beyond," Church wrote. County officials have "expressed concern" about the return to service and have reached out to facility operators to ensure emergency plans "adequately provide for the safety of the surrounding communities and the environment," Nick Pasculli, a Monterey County spokesman, said in a statement provided Thursday. "At this time, however, the County feels it is prudent to encourage PG&E to delay reactivation and continue to engage in additional open, transparent dialogue with County officials, first responders, and the residents we collectively serve," the statement reads. According to a Vistra website detailing the aftermath of the fire, an internal investigation is ongoing, and the cause of the blaze "remains unknown." A California Public Utilities Commission investigation into the blaze also is ongoing, Terrie Prosper, a spokesperson for the regulatory agency, told The Times. Vistra's battery energy storage system stands on the old site of the Moss Landing Power Plant, a gas-powered facility — originally built and operated by PG&E — whose twin smokestacks have towered over the region since 1950. Vistra acquired the plant in 2018 and demolished it to make way for the battery facilities, leaving the iconic smokestacks behind. In a February statement, PG&E noted that the Vistra facilities are 'located adjacent to — but walled off and separate from — PG&E's Moss Landing electric substation." In September 2022, a fire ignited in a single Tesla Megapack at PG&E's Elkhorn facility, five months after the battery energy storage system came online. The blaze, monitored by first responders, was allowed to burn itself out and had visible flames for about six hours, according to an investigation report by Energy Safety Response Group, an independent consulting firm. PG&E, in its letter this month to the county, said the cause of that fire was water that had entered the Megapack "due to the improper installation of deflagration vent shield panels." Tesla made fixes to all 256 Megapacks after the blaze, the utility company wrote. The longer, more destructive Vistra fire this year cast a pall over the clean energy industry in California, which in recent years has become more reliant upon renewable energy, electric vehicles and other battery-powered devices as state officials push to dramatically reduce planet-warming greenhouse gas emissions. The Vistra blaze prompted calls for additional safety regulations around battery storage, as well as more local control over where storage sites are located. Firefighters allowed the Vistra blaze to burn itself out, citing the dangers of dousing lithium-ion battery fires with water, which can cause dangerous chemical reactions. The fire, contained to a single building, smoldered for several days in mid-January. Read more: 'Extremely disturbing': High levels of heavy metals at Monterey estuary after lithium battery site fire In late January, scientists at San José State University recorded a dramatic increase in nickel, manganese and cobalt — materials used in lithium-ion batteries — in soil samples at the Elkhorn Slough Reserve, a nearby estuary that is home to several endangered species. The damaged Vistra building — filled with both burned and unaffected lithium-ion batteries — remained volatile. On Feb. 18, the fire reignited and burned for several hours. Vistra wrote on its website that "additional instances of smoke and flare-ups are a possibility given the nature of this situation and the damage to the batteries." "Since the January 16 fire, Vistra has brought in a private professional fire brigade that is onsite 24/7 to monitor the Moss 300 building," the company wrote. Read more: Residents sue energy companies after massive toxic battery fire at Moss Landing That structure, a former turbine building, contained a 300-megawatt system made up of about 4,500 cabinets, with each containing 22 individual battery modules, Meranda Cohn, a Vistra spokesperson, told The Times in an email. Of the 99,000 individual battery modules in the building, she said, about 54,450 burned. "Demolition on the Moss 300 building will begin once all batteries have been safely removed and discharged, and all debris (concrete, steel, piping) has been removed from the site," Cohn wrote. In February, four residents who live near the facility sued Vistra, PG&E and LG Energy Solution, accusing the companies of failing to maintain adequate fire safety systems. They alleged that they were exposed to toxic smoke emissions that caused nosebleeds, headaches, respiratory problems and other health issues. Environmental advocate Erin Brockovich is working with law firm Singleton Schreiber on the suit. Times staff writer Clara Harter contributed to this report. Sign up for Essential California for news, features and recommendations from the L.A. Times and beyond in your inbox six days a week. This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times.
Los Angeles Times
15-05-2025
- Business
- Los Angeles Times
PG&E plans to reopen lithium battery plant near Monterey County site burned in toxic fire
Four months after a massive fire ignited in Monterey County at one of the world's largest lithium-ion battery storage facilities, Pacific Gas & Electric said it intends to reactivate an adjacent battery site by June to meet summer energy demands. The plan comes over the objections of county officials who requested that both facilities remain offline until the cause of the January fire in rural Moss Landing is determined. 'I had hoped that PG&E would take a more transparent and collaborative approach in addressing the concerns of our surrounding communities, which are still grappling with the fallout of the largest BESS [battery energy storage system] fire in history,' Monterey County Supervisor Glenn Church wrote on Facebook on May 8. 'Restarting operations before investigations are complete and before stronger emergency protocols are in place is disappointing and deeply troubling,' he said. The PG&E facility is one of two battery energy storage systems at the Moss Landing power complex near Monterey Bay. The other is owned by Texas-based Vistra Corp. The batteries store excess energy generated during the day and release it into the power grid during times of high demand, including evening hours. Both facilities have been offline since Jan. 16, when a Vistra-owned building containing 99,000 LG battery modules caught fire, spewing toxic gases into the air and prompting the evacuation of some 1,500 people. The adjacent Elkhorn Battery Energy Storage Facility — which is owned by PG&E and maintained by both the utility company and Tesla — did not burn. But it automatically shut down when its safety equipment detected the fire in the Vistra building. The Elkhorn energy storage facility includes 256 stationary Tesla Megapacks — essentially shipping container-sized units filled with battery modules. The Megapacks, according to PG&E, stand on 33 concrete slaps at the Elkhorn facility. In a May 7 letter to Chris Lopez, chairman of the Monterey County Board of Supervisors, PG&E vice presidents Dave Gabbard and Teresa Alvarado said 'Tesla and PG&E have performed extensive inspection and clean-up' at the Elkhorn Facility and intend to restart it by June 1. After the fire, each of the Megapacks was disassembled and vacuum-cleaned, and environmental monitoring was conducted on and around the site, Gabbard and Alvarado wrote. 'The Elkhorn Facility, as constructed, allows for efficient storage and use of power,' they wrote. 'As summer approaches, that power is necessary to effectively manage the demands of the California power grid and to protect PG&E's customers from power limitations and related impacts.' A PG&E statement provided to The Times said: 'We understand that the safety and well-being of our community is of utmost importance.' The battery facility, the statement reads, provides 'cost savings for electric customers' and helps 'support the state's decarbonization goals.' In his May 8 Facebook post, Church, whose district includes Moss Landing, wrote that the Board of Supervisors on Jan. 22 sent a letter to PG&E and Vistra requesting that their facilities not return to operation until 'the cause of the Vistra fire, as well as a previous fire at the PG&E battery storage facility, are determined and appropriately addressed.' That letter, he wrote, also requested that both companies develop 'robust emergency response plans — based on a 'catastrophic worst-case scenario' involving full facility conflagration' for the county and other relevant agencies to review. Although emergency response plans are required by law, he added, existing state standards 'are limited in scope and do not provide the level of detail or realism' that county officials needed to ensure public safety. 'In previous discussions, PG&E indicated that a return to service would not occur until much later this year or beyond,' Church wrote. County officials have 'expressed concern' about the return to service and have reached out to facility operators to ensure emergency plans 'adequately provide for the safety of the surrounding communities and the environment,' Nick Pasculli, a Monterey County spokesman, said in a statement provided Thursday. 'At this time, however, the County feels it is prudent to encourage PG&E to delay reactivation and continue to engage in additional open, transparent dialogue with County officials, first responders, and the residents we collectively serve,' the statement reads. According to a Vistra website detailing the aftermath of the fire, an internal investigation is ongoing, and the cause of the blaze 'remains unknown.' A California Public Utilities Commission investigation into the blaze also is ongoing, Terrie Prosper, a spokesperson for the regulatory agency, told The Times. Vistra's battery energy storage system stands on the old site of the Moss Landing Power Plant, a gas-powered facility — originally built and operated by PG&E — whose twin smokestacks have towered over the region since 1950. Vistra acquired the plant in 2018 and demolished it to make way for the battery facilities, leaving the iconic smokestacks behind. In a February statement, PG&E noted that the Vistra facilities are 'located adjacent to — but walled off and separate from — PG&E's Moss Landing electric substation.' In September 2022, a fire ignited in a single Tesla Megapack at PG&E's Elkhorn facility, five months after the battery energy storage system came online. The blaze, monitored by first responders, was allowed to burn itself out and had visible flames for about six hours, according to an investigation report by Energy Safety Response Group, an independent consulting firm. PG&E, in its letter this month to the county, said the cause of that fire was water that had entered the Megapack 'due to the improper installation of deflagration vent shield panels.' Tesla made fixes to all 256 Megapacks after the blaze, the utility company wrote. The longer, more destructive Vistra fire this year cast a pall over the clean energy industry in California, which in recent years has become more reliant upon renewable energy, electric vehicles and other battery-powered devices as state officials push to dramatically reduce planet-warming greenhouse gas emissions. The Vistra blaze prompted calls for additional safety regulations around battery storage, as well as more local control over where storage sites are located. Firefighters allowed the Vistra blaze to burn itself out, citing the dangers of dousing lithium-ion battery fires with water, which can cause dangerous chemical reactions. The fire, contained to a single building, smoldered for several days in mid-January. In late January, scientists at San José State University recorded a dramatic increase in nickel, manganese and cobalt — materials used in lithium-ion batteries — in soil samples at the Elkhorn Slough Reserve, a nearby estuary that is home to several endangered species. The damaged Vistra building — filled with both burned and unaffected lithium-ion batteries — remained volatile. On Feb. 18, the fire reignited and burned for several hours. Vistra wrote on its website that 'additional instances of smoke and flare-ups are a possibility given the nature of this situation and the damage to the batteries.' 'Since the January 16 fire, Vistra has brought in a private professional fire brigade that is onsite 24/7 to monitor the Moss 300 building,' the company wrote. That structure, a former turbine building, contained a 300-megawatt system made up of about 4,500 cabinets, with each containing 22 individual battery modules, Meranda Cohn, a Vistra spokesperson, told The Times in an email. Of the 99,000 individual battery modules in the building, she said, about 54,450 burned. 'Demolition on the Moss 300 building will begin once all batteries have been safely removed and discharged, and all debris (concrete, steel, piping) has been removed from the site,' Cohn wrote. In February, four residents who live near the facility sued Vistra, PG&E and LG Energy Solution, accusing the companies of failing to maintain adequate fire safety systems. They alleged that they were exposed to toxic smoke emissions that caused nosebleeds, headaches, respiratory problems and other health issues. Environmental advocate Erin Brockovich is working with law firm Singleton Schreiber on the suit. Times staff writer Clara Harter contributed to this report.
Yahoo
01-04-2025
- Automotive
- Yahoo
How Revel is fast-tracking new EV chargers through a deal with PG&E
Want to know why EV chargers can be so hard to connect to crowded urban power grids? Just look to San Francisco's latest public charging station, opened by startup Revel last week. At first glance, the station, Revel's first foray outside of its home city of New York, doesn't seem like it should be that tricky for Northern California utility Pacific Gas & Electric to connect. It's a fairly small parking lot in the city's Mission District, right next to a major freeway, featuring a fairly standard number of high-speed chargers — 12 — that are available 24/7. But when all those chargers are used at once, the total demand on the grid adds up to 1.3 megawatts, Neema Yazdi, a strategic analyst on PG&E's clean energy transportation team, said at the ribbon-cutting event last week. That's equivalent to roughly one-quarter of the power demand of the city's tallest building, the 1.4-million-square-foot, 61-story Salesforce Tower. 'That's a big feat for a utility to energize,' he said — 'and to do something like that is impossible without the close collaboration of our customers.' More such challenges and collaborations are on the way. Revel plans to start construction this year on seven more Bay Area sites with a total of 125 fast-charging plugs. It's an ambitious pace in a state with notoriously long wait times to bring EV charging hubs online. One way Revel hopes to achieve this plan is by entering two of its upcoming stations into a new PG&E program to fast-track EV charging hubs. On one condition, that is: Station operators have to be willing to reduce the power that chargers can deliver at the times when PG&E's grid can't handle the maximum draw. PG&E and Revel will pursue this 'flexible service connection' approach at one site in the city of Oakland and another near San Francisco International Airport. Under standard utility practice, customers can't connect if their maximum power draw threatens to overtax the grid, even if only during a handful of hours per year when grid demand peaks. That's despite the fact that many EV charging sites are highly unlikely to have enough vehicles charging at once to reach that limit — and that they can theoretically dial back their power use during those critical hours. Flexible service turns that theoretical capability into an operational reality. The process is straightforward: PG&E forecasts its grid needs and, a day ahead of time, sends customers instructions for when they need to curtail power use. Both customers and utility win out, Yazdi said. Customers can 'connect quickly and more seamlessly' and charge at full capacity most of the time, as they wait for PG&E to complete grid upgrades that will eventually remove the constraints they face during peak hours. PG&E, meanwhile, gets to expand EV charging more quickly than it would otherwise be able to. That's not just good for meeting the state's carbon-cutting goals but for reducing rates for customers at large. That's because the program helps reduce immediate pressure on PG&E to make grid upgrades, which are a primary driver of rising electricity rates in its territory, while also quickly expanding its electricity sales. 'Only a few utilities in the United States are doing this nowadays,' Yazdi said. 'This is really forward-thinking, and we're really excited about it.' So are the authors of a February Environmental Defense Fund report that highlights PG&E's leading position among U.S. utilities on the flexible connection front. Southern California Edison is pursuing a similar pilot project, the report notes, and utilities and regulators in Illinois and Colorado are exploring approaches to flexible interconnection as well. Finding ways for EV charging stations to connect more rapidly provides 'both economic benefits to the fleet that can put its newly acquired vehicles and chargers to work, and societal benefits where these electric trucks and buses are displacing fossil fuel vehicles earlier than otherwise possible,' the report's authors wrote. It took PG&E more than a year to establish, test, and gain confidence in the underlying technology needed to complete its first flexible interconnection at a Tesla charging complex in California's Central Valley late last year. With initial projects proving the technology is reliable, PG&E started looking to expand its use of flexible connections, including at several more EV charging sites in the Central Valley — and Revel's two sites in the Bay Area. Revel has been working with PG&E for about 18 months to identify sites and plan for its flexible connection projects, said Jake Potent, the company's vice president of corporate affairs. 'There are a lot of times we don't go forward because we're grid-constrained.' In New York City, Revel has already built five locations serving a total of 88 fast chargers and plans to more than triple that number to 267 chargers by the end of the year. But finding spots with enough grid capacity to serve those concentrated power demands hasn't been easy, Paul Suhey, Revel's chief operating officer and cofounder, told Canary Media back in 2021. At last week's ribbon-cutting, Suhey emphasized that building urban fast-charging stations is 'kind of hard — well, it's really hard. It doesn't happen overnight.' But finding ways to fit megawatt-scale charging into cities is important for localities in states like New York and California, which have set aggressive goals to end sales of new gasoline-fueled cars by 2035. EVs now make up about one-third of passenger vehicle sales in San Francisco, Mayor Daniel Lurie said at last week's event, well above the national share of around 8%. Those adoption numbers gave Revel confidence its fast chargers would get enough use to earn back its costs, Suhey told Canary Media. In New York City, where EV adoption is lower, Revel also operates an all-EV rideshare fleet rather than relying solely on public customers to make the economics of its charging sites work out. New York City and California have mandates for rideshare companies to switch to EVs over the coming years, which further heightens the need for charging sites. Cities also struggle to bring public charging stations into neighborhoods where most people rent their homes, said Joe Piasecki, public affairs and policy coordinator for the San Francisco Environment Department. That's a big problem: Most people charge their EVs at home, but renters face an uphill battle in convincing landlords to install EV chargers on their behalf. That means renters tend to be disproportionately reliant on public EV charging while also having worse access to it. About 70% of San Francisco residents live in multifamily housing, Piasecki said. The economics of urban EV charging have been helped along in California and New York by regulator-approved programs that instruct utilities to cover the costs of 'make-ready' infrastructure — digging trenches, installing transformers and switchgear, and other work required to connect charging stations to the grid — that the site developer might otherwise bear. Similar programs support EV charger installations in Illinois, Massachusetts, and other states. But make-ready work is just one of the expenses that EV charging creates. Sometimes, big sites might force utilities to upgrade the substations serving entire neighborhoods. Flexible interconnection can allow utilities to postpone those 'upstream' upgrades until they can be conducted as part of a broader strategic grid expansion plan. Demand for those upgrades will increase as high-speed charging expands — and as the latest generation of chargers requires even more power to charge vehicles faster. Electrify America's flagship indoor charging station in San Francisco, which houses 20 high-speed chargers, required PG&E to deliver high-voltage power typically reserved for transmission grids and major industrial customers. Public fast chargers aren't the only option, of course. Slower Level 2 chargers can be installed in garages, along curbs, or into street lights. Even slower Level 1 chargers could offer overnight charging options for multifamily buildings. But fast chargers that replicate the experience of fueling up at a gas station are widely seen as a vital amenity to expand the pool of people willing to switch to an EV. 'Without widespread, easy to use, convenient, reliable fast charging, dreams of EV adoption are just that — dreams,' Suhey said.
Boston Globe
28-02-2025
- Politics
- Boston Globe
Judge finds mass firings of federal probationary workers to likely be unlawful
Alsup handed down the order on a temporary restraining order sought by labor unions and nonprofits in a lawsuit filed by the coalition filed last week. Advertisement The complaint filed by five labor unions and five nonprofit organizations is among multiple lawsuits pushing back on the administration's efforts to vastly shrink the federal workforce, which Trump has called bloated and sloppy. Thousands of probationary employees have already been fired and his administration is now aiming at career officials with civil service protection. Get Starting Point A guide through the most important stories of the morning, delivered Monday through Friday. Enter Email Sign Up The plaintiffs say the Office of Personnel Management had no authority to terminate the jobs of probationary workers who generally have less than a year on the job. They also say the firings were predicated on a lie of poor performance by the workers. Lawyers for the government say the Office of Personnel Management did not direct the firings, but asked agencies to review and determine whether employees on probation were fit for continued employment. They also say that probationary employees are not guaranteed employment and that only the highest performing and mission-critical employees should be hired. There are an estimated 200,000 probationary workers — generally employees who have less than a year on the job — across federal agencies. About 15,000 are employed in California, providing services ranging from fire prevention to veterans' care, the complaint says. Unions have recently struck out with two other federal judges in similar lawsuits attempting to stop the Trump administration's goal of vastly reducing the federal workforce. Alsup, who was appointed by President Bill Clinton, a Democrat, has presided over many high-profile cases and is known for his blunt talk. He oversaw the criminal probation of Pacific Gas & Electric and has called the nation's largest utility a 'continuing menace to California.' Advertisement
