Planning commission finds Summer Sweet battery storage project not in accord with Fauquier County comprehensive plan, 4-1

The Fauquier County Planning Commission on Sept. 18 voted 4–1 that the proposed Summer Sweet Energy Center, a 150-megawatt battery energy storage facility off Shipstore Road, is not substantially in accord with the county comprehensive plan.

Commissioners heard a staff presentation, testimony from the applicant and supporting experts and groups, and deliberated before the motion to find the proposal not in accord passed 4–1. The finding is a formal planning determination under the Code of Virginia and does not constitute a special-exception or building permit decision.

Staff said the entire parcel is just under 34 acres, with the proposed facility footprint about 16 acres. The site, within the Village of Morrisville, is zoned industrial park; surrounding land uses and zoning include agriculture, residential, rural residential and commercial designations and include Mary Walter Elementary School and a Dominion Energy Morrisville substation. The project description in the compliance review states the proposed facility would contain 192 individual battery enclosures (20–40 feet in length, about 10 feet high), a control house, a substation, gravel access road, stormwater management and screening walls. Anticipated construction, if a special exception were later sought and approved, would be in 2028 or later, staff said.

Eastpointe Energy, the applicant, argued the site is the only industrial parcel in the Village of Morrisville and that the facility would align with comprehensive-plan goals for locating utilities in industrial or commercial areas and for co-location with existing transmission infrastructure. In the hearing, Maggie Howe, Eastpointe Energy's director of development, summarized company commitments including 24/7 monitoring, prevention-oriented maintenance and partnerships with local first responders. Howe said the project’s peak output “is about 50,000 homes that would receive electricity or a range of around 10 miles, from the substation” and that the closet battery container to the adjacent elementary school would be “about 4 football fields” away.

James Caulfield of Fire and Risk Alliance, a fire response consultant for the applicant, described national incident data and said follow-up testing after recent battery-storage fires on other projects did not show harmful toxin levels or off-site contamination in the sampling he cited. Caulfield said a response strategy is to manage exposures and apply water intermittently rather than attempt to chemically suppress the internal battery reaction; he described containment steps used during a West Coast incident where responders later sampled contained water and found no contaminants.

Skyler Zunk, CEO of Energy Right, a clean-energy education nonprofit, told the commission that battery energy storage systems strengthen grid resilience and can reduce the need for new transmission infrastructure. Zunk said he had advised other counties and praised Fauquier County's battery storage ordinance as a model.

Several commissioners noted prior proceedings and permit history at the site: in August 2023 a rezoning and special exception for a junkyard on the property were denied by the Board of Zoning Appeals; in September 2024 Eastpointe submitted an earlier compliance review and special-exception application that the planning commission previously determined, by a 4–1 vote, was not in accord; the applicant then appealed and later withdrew the appeal in April 2025. Staff also reported that a junkyard on the site had been cleaned up and the zoning violation closed in March 2025.

In deliberations a commissioner said, “the right thing can be in the wrong place,” and that while the technology may be appropriate elsewhere, the commissioner did not believe it should be sited “between a school and a church and, you know, other places residences and where people are meant to gather.” Another commissioner said the site is industrially zoned, is near existing transmission infrastructure and is “hidden,” and therefore supported finding consistency with the plan.

The motion recorded in the meeting states the planning commission found that 1689 Shipstore Road (the project parcel) is not substantially in accord with the adopted Fauquier County comprehensive plan. The motion passed 4–1.

The commission’s determination concerns whether the project fits the comprehensive plan; if a later special-exception application is filed, it would be considered separately and could require conditions addressing screening, safety plans and co-location measures described in staff and applicant materials.