Tag: battery storage safety

Lee Zeldin was back on Long Island on Monday to discuss lithium-ion battery storage facilities. Zeldin, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency administrator, was at the Hauppauge Fire Department, where he announced new guidelines for battery storage.

The visit takes place as proposals for battery storage facilities have been considered in several communities, including Hauppauge, Holtsville, and Glenwood Landing. Elsewhere in the nation, fires have broken out in the last 15 months at lithium-ion battery storage facilities. On Long Island, residents are raising concerns about potential safety risks, health impacts and environmental consequences – particularly in densely populated areas where families live, work, attend school and gather for worship.

“It’s the local first responders who are going to be in danger in dealing with this,” Zeldin, a former congressman in New York, said.

Many towns across Long Island have temporarily halted the development of battery storage facilities as they reassess safety concerns. “This is a regional issue: this isn’t a Nassau County issue, it isn’t just a Suffolk County issue, it’s the whole of Long Island together who don’t want these battery warehouses in their communities,” Nassau County Executive Bruce Blakeman said in a news release about guidelines.

The EPA said in a news release that New York State’s Renewable Action through Project Interconnection and Deployment Act “dramatically expanded state power to override local opposition” for projects that include battery storage facilities.

But the state maintains that permitting for these facilities are already handled at the local level.  Recently, the state enacted what FDNY officials describe as “among the most stringent” battery energy storage safety regulations in the country.

The storage systems play a role in the state’s reduced-carbon energy initiatives. But Zeldin, in a news release about the battery energy storage systems, charged it was “partisan push to fill yet another delusional ‘green’ goal.”

Yet the state maintains that the EPA’s stance is not protecting the environment.

“Lee Zeldin’s job is to protect the environment, but he has been doing anything but that,” Ken Lovett, senior communications advisor on energy and environment for Gov. Kathy Hochul, said in a written statement to LIBN.

“His continued assault on clean energy and his push for rollbacks on environmental protections will hurt everyone in his home state of New York and across the country and fly in the face of the federal government’s claim of wanting U.S. energy independence,” Lovett said. “While other states are rapidly investing in storage to stabilize their grids and lower costs, Zeldin’s approach risks leaving New York’s economy behind and forcing New Yorkers to pay.”

Meanwhile, Zeldin said, the EPA has issued the “guidelines based on our own experiences, our own lessons learned, the technical expertise that we have.”

Zeldin said that “the next time there is a lithium fire, our agency is ready to be there.”

The new EPA guidelines are available here.