Solano supervisors push draft battery storage rules after public safety, farmland concerns

The Solano County Board of Supervisors on Tuesday heard a staff briefing and extensive public comment on a draft ordinance to regulate large, front‑of‑meter battery energy storage systems and asked staff to move quickly to finalize standards addressing fire risk, siting and community protections.

The draft ordinance would apply to systems greater than 1 megawatt and requires discretionary use permits, third‑party technical review, emergency‑response and decommissioning plans, and financial assurances. Staff framed the draft as a risk‑based approach that would prohibit BESS in some hazardous areas, require layered mitigations for thermal‑runaway risk and offer narrower pathways with fewer conditions for non‑flammable chemistries.

The issue matters because developers can currently take an alternative permitting route at the California Energy Commission (CEC), and supervisors said a local ordinance is the county’s main lever to influence outcomes, short of changes to state law. Director of Resource Management James Musick told the board that local rules are “important” because the CEC must consider local ordinances and general plan policies when it evaluates any AB205 opt‑in applications.

Eric Hagstrom, associate planner, described the draft’s core elements: mandatory pre‑application meetings with county agencies, a technical…