Representatives from the Nebraska-based company Tenaska met with local media members Monday afternoon to discuss a potential Utility Scale Battery Energy Storage System project in the Burr Oak area in Marshall County.
The process is in the predevelopment stage, and no permit applications have been submitted. With the moratorium recommended by the Marshall County Plan Commission and adopted by ordinance by the Marshall County Commissioners Monday morning, any documentation on that matter will need to wait for at least 12 months or until a Utility Scale Battery Energy Storage System ordinance is in place in the county and the commissioners take action to lift the ordinance.
As explained by Tenaska Project Development Consultant James Hingston, this is a standalone type of project that is not attached or associated with any solar development or array, and is proposed to be built near a substation.
Hingston stated, “We would connect to the grid through that so we wouldn’t be connected to any sort of solar project, any sort of individual power plant or generator or anything like that. We basically build the transmission line that connects the batteries and the substation, and then power can flow kind of both ways from there. So, you can charge the batteries up just like any other phone or battery or whatever and then you can discharge it when that power is needed.”
It would be a 200 Megawatt facility with about 200 enclosures, but it would depend on final design and on what an ordinance would provide. The project will entail about 20 acres of land, but the entire acreage will not be used for production with setbacks and other anticipated requirements. In all, it might utilize about eight acres and the operation would be monitored remotely.
It would be an estimated $300 million investment with an estimated $20 million in property tax revenue over the life of the project.
Hingston said lithium ion batteries would be the technology used in this proposed Utility Scale Battery Energy Storage System project.
“There’s different chemistries. Lithium iron phosphate, which it gets abbreviated as LFP, is the chemistry we would be looking to develop here. That’s for utility scale batteries. It’s considered kind of best practice because it’s less energy dense so that should some sort of like overheating event happened, there’s less energy there to be released via heat. They’re safer and the chemistry itself is also more stable so it’s less likely to run into any issue like that.”
He addressed a question about safety, which is what concerns residents in Marshall County, and meetings have occurred with Plymouth and Culver Fire Departments to discuss the creation of emergency plans and training. Hingston indicated that no specialized equipment is needed if a fire does happen.
A road use agreement would also be drafted.
Tenaska Senior Director of Project Development Jarrod Pitts indicated that if a project is decommissioned, certain documents will be put in place in the ordinance to bring the land back to a state of agricultural productivity at the end of the project’s useful life, to which Aileron Vice President of Client Services Peter Gray agreed.
Gray commented, “Battery cells are sealed and they’re inside of a module and that’s also sealed and then they’re in this enclosure so there’s a lot of layers that materials of the battery won’t contact the ground. They won’t come out. Those enclosures are on a concrete pad as well so even that is another layer. [The batteries] are not liquid. It’s mostly solid and the electrolyte is one item that is partly liquid, but there’s not like a car battery that has a bunch acid in it. It’s a different technology so it doesn’t have that component.”
The representatives pointed to Indiana House Bill 1173
(https://legiscan.com/IN/bill/HB1173/2023) where it discusses Utility Scale Battery Energy Storage Systems and regulations and they said it is one of the strictest in the country. It states that the development or construction of a project cannot move forward without the approval of the Department of Homeland Security, it has to meet fire prevention and building safety commission standards, and the National Fire Protection Association’s standard concerning stationary energy storage systems.
So, what makes Marshall County so attractive for a Utility Scale Battery Energy Storage System project? Hingston had an answer.
“You have buildable land that is near a substation so there’s existing infrastructure there to kind of build off of and then on the back end you have utilities that are interested in purchasing the capacity to allow for it to operate on the long term. Those two things make it very attractive to build.”
If this project moves forward, this would be the first Utility Scale Battery Energy Storage System project by Tenaska in Indiana. The project would potentially start construction in 2025 with operation in 2027, depending on timing of an ordinance and the status of the moratorium.
Talking with the public is part of the pre-construction process, but plans will not be available until the ordinance is developed.
