provided the Freeman with a copy that was sent to the state.<\/a><\/p>\n\u201cThe battery-related thermal incidents discussed publicly (by opponents) were associated with a specific manufacturer\u2019s equipment deployed at the Edwards Sanborn and Valley Center facilities,\u201d Turner wrote. \u201cTerra-Gen has not experienced a thermal incident involving other battery technologies deployed across its operating fleet. The manufacturer has implemented an ongoing assessment, inspection, and replacement program for that equipment, which is no longer being deployed in the market and is not part of the configuration proposed for the Town of Ulster.\u201d<\/p>\n
California officials wrote that the state Electric Safety and Reliability Branch was sent on April 21-24, 2025, to identify \u201cpotential violations\u201d and the report then required a response by July 31, 2025, to explain \u201ccorrective actions and preventive measures\u2026to resolve the violations.\u201d<\/p>\n
Terra-Gen is seeking to use 12 acres of the 15-acre 430 Hurley Ave. former Coleman site for an array of battery enclosure \u201cgroupings.\u201d Although details have not been finalized, enclosure groupings typically measure up to 100 feet long by 8 feet wide, or up to 70 feet long and up to 16 feet wide, with heights reaching up to 20 feet.<\/p>\n
Turner emphasized that the equipment in the enclosure worked as designed when fire events occurred at both the 3.3-gigawatt Edwards site and the 130-megawatt Valley Center location.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe CPUC audit reviewed a broad range of operational and administrative matters at one of the nation\u2019s largest solar and battery storage facilities,\u201d he wrote. \u201cThe findings cited publicly primarily involved operational compliance and housekeeping items such as documentation practices, inspection tagging, signage, emergency lighting, (emergency response plan) document placement, and storage practices. Several items were corrected during the inspection itself. Importantly, the audit did not conclude that Terra-Gen\u2019s battery facilities were operating unsafely.\u201d<\/p>\n
Jillian Fried, who is leading opposition to the Hurley Ave. site proposal, considers California\u2019s own descriptions of 12 significant problems involving 27 violations directly contradicting Turner\u2019s contentions. Beyond noting that state officials required a \u201cCorrective Action Plan with a description and completion date of each action and measure completed,\u201d she said that Terra-Gen\u2019s May 22 letter attempts to make equipment failures seem like successes despite Kern County fire officials concerns listed in various reports.<\/p>\n
\u201cFirefighters were advised in one of the incident reports to stay 1,000 feet away,\u201d she said, pointing to a July 14, 2024, incident. \u201cThe reason? Because of the toxic smoke and the gases that are put off by these fires. That\u2019s why.\u201d<\/p>\n
Fried said smoke findings in the firefighters\u2019 report should give Ulster town officials pause, as they won\u2019t have Kern County\u2019s advantage of \u201cwind\u2026out of the west pushing the smoke east where there were no homes for 20 to 30 miles\u201d in the Mojave Desert.<\/p>\n
\u201cOur community doesn\u2019t have the luxury to have a safe barrier in between us and the facility because there are homes 300 to 350 feet away,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
Plan opponent Tim Kelly didn\u2019t find Turner\u2019s May 22 letter reassuring.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe reported issues included high voltage maintenance tracking failures, missed daily inspection entries, confusing and outdated \u2018do not operate\u2019 tags, emergency lighting failures, missing fire extinguisher signs, fire extinguishers without monthly inspection tags, inadequate evacuation mapping, outdated emergency contact information, missing emergency response documents, and improper storage of hazardous waste and gas cylinders,\u201d he said. \u201cIf this is what Terra-Gen calls routine housekeeping, then the Town Board should ask what Terra-Gen considers serious.\u201d<\/p>\n
California officials in the report on Edwards\u2019 violation had a list of 72 reviewed documents for the inspection, including \u201croot cause analysis of all reportable incidents, if any\u201d for safety, operations, and maintenance categories. Opponents of the proposed Hurley Avenue site believe that town of Ulster officials should also want to see those findings.<\/p>\n
\u201cTerra-Gen should be required to produce complete root cause analyses, corrective action reports, incident reports, emergency response records, audit responses, equipment specifications, manufacturer histories, and any internal or third-party safety assessments for every documented thermal event or serious compliance issue involving its battery facilities,\u201d Kelly said. \u201cNot summaries. Not talking points. The actual documents.\u201d<\/p>\n
Town of Ulster Citizens Chairperson Regis Obijiski is also concerned that Terra-Gen\u2019s defense of its California facilities is similar to its attitude when dealing with requests for information about its New York plans. He said there are significant credibility problems for the project application if people need to find out how a company has handled its existing facilities.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf you slipped up, and we\u2019re all part of humanity, say it and say it before I discover it,\u201d he said. \u201cTell me what you\u2019ve learned from it, and I\u2019ll have so much respect. But, if I have to dig because you\u2019re shading or mollifying or you\u2019re not telling the complete story, it promotes distrust. That\u2019s what we\u2019re talking about here.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"TOWN OF ULSTER, N.Y. \u2013 Terra-Gen Vice President Mark Turner has fired back against opponents of the proposed…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":339747,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[7,9,8,181,9189,23,4694,100,140011,140012,140013],"class_list":["post-339746","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-california","tag-california","tag-california-headlines","tag-california-news","tag-latest-headlines","tag-lithium-ion-batteries","tag-local-news","tag-new-york","tag-news","tag-terra-gen","tag-town-of-ulster","tag-ulster-county"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/339746","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=339746"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/339746\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/339747"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=339746"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=339746"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=339746"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}