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Washington County supervisors push for coordinated response to battery-storage on solar sites
Summary
Supervisors discussed safety, environmental and planning concerns about battery energy storage systems added to solar projects and proposed a county-level working group and shared guidance for towns.
Washington County Board of Supervisors members discussed a broad set of concerns about battery energy storage systems being added to utility-scale and distributed solar arrays and asked staff to coordinate county-level guidance and a working group.
The discussion centered on public-safety risks, potential contamination of wetlands and waterways, gaps in local firefighting capacity, and limits in existing local zoning and permitting tools. Supervisors said state guidance exists but that local governments need a shared approach so towns do not face piecemeal permitting decisions.
Supervisors said battery systems proposed in several parts of the county differ from the projects originally permitted as solar arrays and often involve very large numbers of batteries in a single facility. “They don’t even call it batteries,” one supervisor said, noting applicants now present projects labeled as…
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