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Plans for battery storage facility in Morro Bay in peril

August 6, 2024

By KAREN VELIE

Plans to transform the Morro Bay Power Plant property into a massive battery storage facility are in peril with the California Coastal Commission now critical of the project.

Vistra, a Texas-based energy company, has plans to construct and operate a 600-megawatt battery storage facility on approximately 24 acres of a roughly 70-acre site. However, residents, concerned the facility will endanger the public while negatively impacting tourism and the fishing industry, pushed a local ballot initiative that could stop Morro Bay from permitting the project.

However, even if the measure succeeds, new legislation allows battery storage facilities to garner approval through the California Energy Commission and override local governments.

In an attempt to untangle the conflicting proposals, Morro Bay’s new Community Development Director Airlin Singewald reached out to the Coastal Commission.

In her four-page Aug. 2 reply, Coastal Commission planner Sarah MacGregor discusses the permitting process, the ballot initiative, the new legislation and the commission’s concerns with Vistra’s proposal.

Currently, the battery storage facility is not an allowable use and requires a local coastal plan amendment, an application that overlaps the potential ballot measure, MacGregor wrote. If the ballot measure passes in November, the commission will help the city navigate the overlaps.

In regards to AB 205, the new legislation, both California Energy Commission and Coastal Commission approvals will still be required.

“We have reviewed the law associated with AB 205, and it appears clear that the process envisioned there would render the above process moot as it relates to city-specific efforts, but it would still require certain Coastal Commission processes to remain in effect,” MacGregor wrote. “An application under AB 205 would not supersede the authority of the Coastal Commission under the Coastal Act.”

In regards to constructing the proposed battery storage facility near the ocean in Morro Bay, the Coastal Commission found “significant development constraints,” including issues with habitat that supports special status species, the degradation of habitats, and the need for a prohibited sea wall.

“It also appears clear that the proposed battery energy storage system site is subject to significant coastal resource constraints that need to be carefully evaluated in any case, some of which at the current time appear to preclude such a use/development altogether under the Coastal Act and the local coastal plan,” according to MacGregor. “We are available for consultation on all of these issues.”

 


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Those that are against this project will be the first to complain when we start having rolling blackouts or a complete grid overload. These

battery energy storage systems (BESS) strategically placed throughout the grid are the best answer to storing the excess power produced by renewables during the day. It will be interesting to see how Caballero the BESS currently under construction on the Nipomo Mesa does once it goes online later this year. There is no perfect solution to our energy needs but battery storage is a viable piece of the pie.


-5

Not in my backyard! Woo woo!


-4

I’m sure one battery will fit in your backyard… just ask them for one…


2

They should just fire up the power plant that’s already there, for shit’s sake. Clean burning natural gas works great.


26

Too much MBPP equipment removed, such as the main unit 230kv output transformers which were scrapped. The gas line main valve and metering were removed adjacent to the internal PG&E fence on the north side. I don’t know where it’s capped, but I would speculate the gas line hasn’t had cathodic protection for years and could require sections of new pipe between Shandon and Morro Bay. The Coastal Commission ventured beyond their grid competency by thwarting once-through cooling on Morro Bay Powerplant in 2014. By sitting on the coastal Powerplant balloon which only affected a 1/2 mile radius of larvae at a few plants, they displaced the issue into another arena resulting in the future tainting of 400 square miles of our ocean with corrosion prone offshore wind platforms. They also will be in the middle on the shipping lane for container ships traveling from Oakland to Long Beach which costs them more fuel to avoid.


16

The gas line is Sempra and remains in service, with extensive replacement of the 1920 pipe, in perfect condition due to cathodic protection, post-San Ramon to supply the North Coast. Even cathodic protection on the unused Chevron jet fuel pipeline has been scrupulously maintained including new 400′ anode wells. The line is also regularly overflown. A guy was spotted discing in the ROW and got a quick visit from a utility representative. The ROW is very valuable. Union Pacific makes more money on the coast line from fiberoptic telecom than trains.


6

You can’t just “pick another location”. Morro Bay, like Diablo, is connected to the Pacific Intertie running from Washington State to LA. Make it work. If renewable energy is to work there must be storage. PG&E already has too much solar in the middle of the day.


0

If that is the case, why not put this in Cal Valley next to the Topaz facility? Being there, it could blow up and burn all it wants, with no deadly peril to thousands of people, the ocean, the bay, and surfers.


PGE has too much solar? Well, why not shut off the coal, oil, and gas produced energy we buy from out of state? Surely, if solar is exceeding demand, the cost saving of not buying out of state energy would be great.


Or…did you just make all that up?


13

Th grid does not work the same way both ways. You can’t just use solar in place of other systems without infrastructure. Take a power distribution class.


3

Read this one Einstein, negative natural gas prices.


https://www.nytimes.com/2024/08/08/business/energy-environment/natural-gas-negative-prices-texas.html


This happened to PG&E over 9 days one Jan/Feb, negative electricity rates to utilities in neighboring states. High production, no AC load.


1

Yes solar & wind power needs batteries to Yo-Yo load twice a day to be viable facade to waste time and money on. So, it takes 2 utility assets and twice the exposure to failure to replace one natural gas powerplant. No, the batteries don’t have to be located at Morro Bay. Batteries could be located at Mesa, Templeton, Estrella, Diablo, Topaz, Solar, Midway, Gates and other substations on the 230kv system. Or build a new substation in Santa Margarita and land the majority of the Morro Bay lines there. Thin out lines into the Morro Bay switchyard by making bypasses at the towers at the top of Radcliffe. There is a south to north intertie choker which is the Morro Bay-Templeton 230kv line. Templeton 230/70kv Bk#1 load of ~150MW causes uneven loading compared to the adjacent line going to Gates Sub which has only increased since the single loop reconfigure in 2000 at Templeton Sub. Batteries at Morro Bay don’t fix this, but they do offer voltage control for Diablo 230kv startup power. There is a 230kv high voltage issue at Morro Bay during light loading weekends in spring ever since Morro Bay units 3&4 stopped being rolling reserve around 2009. At a minimum a couple 230kv shunt reactors need to be installed at Morro Bay, I predict.


8

You seem pretty savvy maybe you an answer this. What is the capacity of the ESS facility? 600mW means nothing, peak output, 600mW for how long? It’s not watts with a battery, it’s watt hrs. Morro Bay’s gas plat was 500mW, all day all night as long as there was fuel. Diablo Canyon the same at 1,000mW/per. Your cell phone battery is say 3,000 milliwatt hrs, 3,000 milliwatts for one hour or 30 milliwatts for 100 hours. 600 megawatts for how long? My jump charger is rated at 630 amps at 12 volts, 7,460 watts, but not for long. No help from Vistra’s or Morro Bay’s website, but then they don’t even know the difference between kilo, mega or giga, much less the difference between watts and watt hours.


2

Lithium BESSs and EPRI have settled on an industry standard of 4 hr ratings. So, 600MW x 4hr= 2400 MWh. Watching the CAISO website supply tab, the Moss batteries consistently discharge for 2 hours between 0800-1000 after charging from Washington hydro from 0000-0400. Then Moss batteries charge again off solar from 1000-1700. MBPP U3 & 4 were ~360MW tandem shaft units. MBPP U1&U2 were each ~160MW, however they had a voltage limitation due to their main bank transformers already selected during maintenance to their highest no load tap. U3&4 main bank transformers had higher voltage no load tap capability. When Diablo studies evoked startup 230kv voltage guidelines to provide a 110MW margin for a dual unit trip thrusting that much load on the 230kv system, CAISO operating instruction O-23 was created and the sister DCPP Op procedure (OP.D2 or D4?) with higher voltage guidelines. MBPP U1&2 couldn’t maintain voltage above 230kv by themselves due to the output transformers highest no load tap not being high enough. At that point MBPP U1&2 when online would circulate VARS with U3&4 above 230kv, especially when trying to hold a 234kv schedule on the Morro Bay bus… Thanks for the Sempra info and catholic update. I’m definitely void of that gas system knowledge. I find if you speculate right no one will correct you, but if wrong someone will chime in with the straight scoop.


2

I get such a kick out of the anti-Bess locals who are so concerned about the impact to tourists and tourism. The day after Bess gets vetoed the same people will be screaming about getting rid of all the knuckle-dragging tourists.


3

The NIMBY luddites are at it again. I’m surprised the morons can operate a pair of Birkenstocks.


-40

Surprisingly, the anti-nuke Birkenstock hippies, are also not too keen on this potential bomb in the back yard.


5

I like MacGregors’ statement in the last paragraph, “It also appears clear that the proposed battery energy storage system…” because it is an energy storage system, not a battery storage system. The batteries are the vessels not what’s being stored.


Six hundred megawatts is a lot of energy. Enough to provide electricity to 20,000 homes for a 24- hour period and equal to the energy contained in 16,371 gallons of gasoline.


-7

There are 136,000 homes in San Luis Obispo County alone! Why don’t people see this for the farce it is?!

Everyone focuses on the nuts and bolts of these projects, when in reality, they are just cash grabs for the investment groups behind them, courtesy of politicians who are desperate for more revenue.

Imagine the investment in lobbyists they have to constantly sell these ideas .

Aren’t folks a little curious that every “ fix” costs the tax and ratepayers billions? – and make no mistake- we are the ones paying for this, whether we like it or not.

Like the never-to-be-completed Bullet Train, this will do almost nothing for “Climate Change”

I hope more people do the math themselves and stop being suckers!


24

Yes and there is no housing shortage, there is a tax revenue shortage due to over paid staff and their ridiculous pensions. Their answer is to create a shortage and punish us if we don’t build and never mind the traffic issues. Sorry but your kids can’t live in Bellair, Monticeto or San Luis Obispo. That will NEVER change unless you have bought wisely and leave it to them, oops prop 19, one of them. Thank you, California Board of Realtors.


5

Couldn’t have worded it better myself. Everyone gets so hung up on drivel that hits them right in their feefee’s and gets their undergarments all soaking OR they march right alongside those (mentioned previously) for either lack of wanting to make any type of ripples in the pond and “rock the boat” as the old saying goes or in an attempt to pick up the spare virtue signaling kudos they are certain will be showered upon those they believe will be found to be “on the right side of history” and so, likely heralded and praised for such heroic and selfless action (or so they’ve convinced themselves to believe) These dolts (the saturated undies, self identified “Guardians” or so they think as well as those minions dogging their heels hoping to gobble up some of the scraps left behind or carelessly dropped) are quite honestly some of the most heinous, untrustworthy and, sometimes, nefarious and devious types out in society. Hiding their treachery and greed or lust for power, authority and/or influence behind a thin (yet well formed, I will give them that) veil of a seemingly sanctimonious and seemingly benign and well intended intentions. In MOST cases, this is FAR from the truth. For the rest of those who constantly rail on about nonsense like this, they are typically your “useful idiots” types. Going along just so they can get along. People need to wise the hell up and pull their heads from their colons, as well as KNUCKLE UP and STOP being so timid and terrified and anxious about what those types may do or make happen to them should it appear they DONT “support the cause”. Because of people DONT start seeing more clearly the lies that are being pawned off as “truths” AND dont start seeing those that are peddling them for WHAT and WHO they TRULY are and start acting, reacting and handling all of these issues differently, we and EVERYTHING we know is doomed.. WAKE THE HELL UP FOLKS! Because AS it stands, FAR too vast a swath of the populace CONTINUES to march us ALL on a dark and perilous path into HELL. And I am NOT talking in a Biblical sense of the word, more a DYTSOPIAN one! And THATS the reality of the matter.


0

Oh boy sheepish, this does not sound sane. Get out into your garden more.


-1

I agree it’s a cash grab.

Homeowners finance a solar system for 20 years and get credited for excess electricity produced and delivered to the grid at 12-14 cents per kilowatt-hour then they charge you 43 cents per kwh when you use it. No wonder they want huge batteries to store the energy until peak hours. Do the math!


3