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Worcester County board signals preliminary denial for Cedar Hall battery storage after hours of testimony
Summary
After hours of testimony from the applicant and dozens of residents, the Worcester County Board of Zoning Appeals moved toward denying a special-exception application for a 150-megawatt battery energy storage facility and asked staff to return with formal written findings at a later meeting.
Worcester County’s Board of Zoning Appeals on Aug. 14 heard more than four hours of testimony on a special-exception application by Cedar Hall Energy LLC to build a utility-scale battery energy storage system (BESS) on Tax Map 91, Parcel 68 near the intersection of Cedar Hall Road and the Pocomoke Beltway.
The applicant’s attorney, Mark Spencer Crawford, and several technical witnesses described the project as a grid-stabilizing storage site consisting of containerized battery enclosures, an electrical switching/substation area, a gravel work pad, perimeter fencing and a vegetative screening plan. The applicant said the facility would be monitored 24/7 and coordinated with local emergency services. As Mark Spencer Crawford told the board at the start of the hearing, “I have no additions or corrections to the application read.”
The applicant’s technical presentation described the facility’s function: it would “take power off of the grid during times of low demand and provide power to the grid during times of peak demand,” testimony from the applicant team said. Project representatives told the board they plan native-species buffering and…
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