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Richmond County approves amendment to let Dominion increase battery capacity and adopt updated NFPA 855 fire standards
Summary
The board approved Dominion Energy Virginia's requested amendments to a 2022 special exception to allow phased expansion from 75 MW up to 325 MW, to reset permit timing, and to replace a dry‑pipe flooding requirement with provisions that reference current NFPA 855 standards and other containment, monitoring and training measures.
The Richmond County Board of Supervisors on May 14 approved amendments to a July 2022 special exception that will allow Dominion Energy Virginia to pursue phased construction of a battery energy storage facility on parcels referenced as Tax Map 3880–3882 and to use updated fire‑safety practices aligned with NFPA 855 (2026 edition).
County staff described three primary changes Dominion sought: (1) reset the three‑year timeline for applying for a building permit so the clock starts from approval of the amendments; (2) allow an increase in the facility’s eventual installed energy capacity from the previously permitted 75 megawatts to up to 325 megawatts, implemented in phases with county review (stormwater, erosion control, site plan) for each phase; and (3) remove the previous condition requiring a dry‑pipe manual flooding system and instead adopt modern containment, spacing and monitoring practices consistent with current NFPA 855 guidance.
Justin Perry, Dominion’s director of corporate risk engineering, described how industry practice has shifted away from flooding thermal‑runaway events. "We’ve understood that [flooding] tends to drag out that inevitable failure event," Perry said, adding that the chosen approach is to "simply allow it to burn, stay away, don’t get close to the batteries." He and other Dominion representatives said specialist remediation contractors would remove burned containers and any contaminated soil and replace equipment after an incident.
County fire staff and consultants said the 2026 NFPA 855 provisions and a conservative separation distance (the county discussed 25 feet for the first phase) are intended to limit fire propagation between containers and reduce hazardous runoff from forced flooding. Fire staff also said monitored ignition systems (designed to ignite off‑gas at low concentrations) reduce the risk of an explosion in a thermal event.
Public commenters asked detailed questions about containment, burn duration, container construction and noise. Clifford Davis urged supervisors to request more technical documentation and to review incidents such as at Boulder City, Nevada and Cal Flats; he asked, "What is a burn day? Is that 20 minutes? 2 hours? 20 days?" Dominion and fire staff replied that testing indicates single‑digit hours for full burn events in test conditions, that explosion risk is reduced by off‑gas ignition systems, and that Dominion will provide site‑specific emergency response visuals once engineering is complete. The company also pledged training for county volunteers and emergency personnel and said the battery management system will monitor cell‑level metrics remotely from Dominion’s operations center in Richmond.
After discussion and requests for follow‑up (site tours, confirmation of buffer and construction details), a supervisor moved to approve the amendments and the board voted in favor. The board also authorized county staff (Ms. Moseley) to work with Dominion on revisions to the siting agreement. State Corporation Commission approvals and per‑phase technical submittals (stormwater, erosion and site plans) will still be required before each construction phase.
