An aerial view of the proposed battery energy storage system. | Image: PowerTransitions.

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At a special meeting last night, the Blue Lake City Council voted 4-0 in closed session to terminate the city’s exclusive negotiating agreement with PowerTransition LLC, a Texas-based energy developer that was in line to transform the city’s defunct power plant into a 20-megawatt lithium-iron-phosphate battery energy storage facility.

The council had approved the agreement with PowerTransitions last year after a company representative approached the city with a plan to demolish some power plant infrastructure and build a battery energy storage system (BESS) that would repurpose the existing transformer and substation. PowerTransitions proposed to pay for site clean-up and remediation, with an estimated price tag between $750,000 and $1.5 million.

For the past four years, city staff have worked closely with the Redwood Coast Energy Authority (RCEA) to develop a small-scale BESS that would collect and store excess energy from the grid in rechargeable batteries for future use. At a meeting in February, PowerTransitions Senior Advisor Jeff Goldstein said the project would provide a five-day energy supply during a long-term power outage.

But the proposal drew criticism from some Blue Lake residents who argued that the project posed significant risks, including fire, environmental damage, such as potential contamination of Mad River. They also worried that it would create noise and light pollution. 

PowerTransitions’s proposal came in response to a request for offers (RFO) issued in December by RCEA, our region’s community choice aggregation energy provider. That agency was seeking offers for new or incremental capacity projects that include solar energy generation plus battery storage.

Last night, when Blue Lake Mayor John Sawatzky announced the council’s vote to terminate its agreement with PowerTransitions, he said the decision was made due to the fact that the company had not been shortlisted as a finalist in RCEA’s procurement process.

Reached via phone today, Blue Lake City Councilmember Elise Scafani, who represents the city on RCEA’s Board of Directors, said that the city’s agreement with PowerTransitions was contingent on its inclusion on RCEA’s shortlist, because without a purchasing agreement from that agency, PowerTransitions wouldn’t have a customer willing to buy the energy stored at the facility.

Scafani added that the termination of this agreement doesn’t preclude a different project from being developed at the former biomass power plant site. Scafani noted that the city has a memorandum of understanding (MOU) with RCEA, established in early 2023, to explore possibilities at that property. 

“This MOU said, ‘We understand that the biomass plant is kaput,’ but we have this grid interconnection — nobody can put a dollar figure on that,” Scafani said, highlighting the value of the plant’s transmission lines linking to the statewide energy grid. “To get those [built] now costs millions,” she said.

RCEA Executive Director Beth Burks said the power plant location remains a valuable asset, and the MOU to explore possible uses for it remains valid.

“We’re willing to work with the city to explore what could go out there and be a partner with that, to help the city evaluate what to do,” Burks said. She added that the proposals shortlisted in the RFO process will be revealed at the next RCEA board meeting, this Thursday. 

Asked what comes next from the city council, Scafani said, “Next is we start at the beginning where maybe we should have started in the first place — that’s my opinion. The beginning needed to be town hall meetings so there was a full understanding of our potential and determining a direction with our citizens [for] where we want to go with this power plant. Very honestly, we don’t understand what we have and what our potential could be, and that should be a decision our community makes together.”

The Outpost reached out to PowerTransitions seeking a comment on last night’s decision but did not hear back before publication time.

RCEA will be hosting an informational community meeting and workshop on battery storage on July 23, 5:30 p.m. at the D Street Community Center in Arcata. Burks said it will offer a broad overview of the technology, addressing why it’s important, what communities should be concerned about and debunking some misinformation. 

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