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In January, the coastal California town of Moss Landing witnessed the most destructive battery fire in U.S. history. Now, Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) has signed SB 283, a law designed to prevent a repeat of the disaster by strengthening statewide fire safety standards for grid battery installations.
Batteries have become an integral part of California’s push to clean up its electricity system. But the Moss Landing conflagration jolted the state as it burned for several days, provoked evacuations of surrounding communities, and destroyed an old power-plant hall that electricity company Vistra had packed full of lithium-ion batteries in 2020. That disaster has since become a symbol of the apparent risks of adopting large-scale batteries, popping up in conversations about proposed battery projects around the country.
In the years since Moss Landing came online, though, the grid battery industry has moved on from that type of design. These days, most every project places batteries in individual containers spaced out across an open field, which minimizes the chances of a fire spreading between them.
Even with those advances in grid battery designs, state Sen. John Laird saw an opportunity to tighten state requirements in light of what happened in January, and he authored SB 283 to do just that.
“Moss Landing was approved through local planning processes — the state was not involved,” said Laird, a Democrat who represents Moss Landing and much of California’s central coast. “What this bill was designed to do was provide guidance from the state.”
Instead of leaving everything up to local jurisdictions — which may be reviewing a large battery project for the first time — the law requires developers to collaborate with first responders on emergency-response plans. Battery developers must now meet with fire authorities during the design phase, and then bring them in to inspect fire-suppression systems prior to launching commercial operations.
That requirement “codifies an industry best practice to ensure early outreach to the fire department” or other relevant authorities, noted Nick Petrakis, director of engineering at Energy Safety Response Group, a firm that works with battery owners on crafting their emergency-response plans.
An earlier draft of the law would have required California to adopt the National Fire Protection Association’s standards for battery safety. As it happened, the Office of the State Fire Marshal did so back in March, so SB 283 didn’t need to force the issue.
The final text does call for the fire marshal, in the next building code update, to “review and consider proposing provisions that restrict the location of energy storage systems to dedicated-use noncombustible buildings or outdoor installations.” That could lead to an effective ban on projects like Moss Landing that insert batteries into existing structures.
This law isn’t the only state action afoot on this topic. The California Public Utilities Commission updated its own battery standards in March and will monitor compliance. That regulatory body is leading an investigation into the cause of the Moss Landing fire. No official determination has been released yet, but the public can expect the PUC to share its findings when they are complete, Laird said.
California leaders see a safe, sustainable grid storage industry as crucial to reaching the state’s long-term climate goals, because the battery plants facilitate the ongoing buildout of clean energy generation.
In 2020, the year Moss Landing came online, the state had mere hundreds of megawatts of batteries hooked up to help the grid. This year, the state surpassed 15,000 megawatts of installed batteries, and it’s aiming for 52,000 megawatts by 2045. The battery fleet is already helping prevent shortages during summer heat waves and cutting into fossil-gas consumption during evening hours, pushing down the cost of energy at those times.
Energy storage trade groups, eager to maintain the pace of the battery buildout, welcomed the new guidance from SB 283 rather than resisting the imposition of new regulations.
The national group American Clean Power, which advocates for the battery industry among others, spoke favorably of the bill’s potential impact. “SB 283 strengthens safety protocols with support from firefighters, electricians, industry, and utilities — ensuring California can continue leading this growing clean energy sector,” the group wrote in a June fact sheet.
“The latest standards for this technology have proven extremely effective,” said Alex Jackson, executive director of American Clean Power’s California branch, in an emailed statement. “Every state should give local officials the tools and the authority to ensure those standards are in place.”
The California Energy Storage Alliance similarly said it was “proud to support this bill” and praised Newsom for signing it.
Responsible developers already work closely with local emergency-response teams, so the new requirements won’t increase their workload appreciably. Many battery firms worry about how the few battery fires that do happen reflect poorly on the industry as a whole; communities debating whether to allow a battery in their proximity might not appreciate the differences in safety between a Moss Landing–era plant and the state of the art today. In that sense, the fact that California has enhanced its battery safety laws could serve the industry better than an absence of new regulations.
“Everybody’s realistic about how serious the Moss Landing fire was,” Laird said. “The whole industry rests on public confidence that they’re not at risk next to a huge battery storage facility, and the industry wants to help in that assurance.”
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