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Note: Welcome To RCBJ’s “Your Voices” Column, an occasional column prompted by readers’ commentary. If you have something to say, in a well-reasoned essay of 500 to 700 words, email the editor at ttraster@rcbizjournal.com
120 Moratoriums Across 40 Counties Have Been Imposed; 13 Jurisdictions Have Restricted All Battery Storage Projects, Regardless of Size.
By Malaquias Encarnacion
Orangetown recently passed a local law establishing a temporary moratorium on the approval, construction, and installation of both battery energy storage systems and data centers. The decision to group these two technologies under a single moratorium was not accidental. It reflects a growing recognition that the siting debates around battery storage and data centers share the same root cause: local planning boards are being asked to evaluate complex energy infrastructure applications without the technical tools to do so.
I run a firm that specializes in permitting battery energy storage systems, and we track every BESS moratorium enacted in New York. The statewide count now exceeds 120 moratoriums across more than 40 counties. Thirteen jurisdictions have gone further, restricting all battery storage regardless of project size. In June alone, four new moratoriums were enacted. The Hudson Valley has been one of the most active regions.
These moratoriums are not irrational. The concerns driving them are legitimate. Lithium-ion battery fires produce toxic gases. Thermal runaway, the cascading failure mode that can cause a single battery cell to ignite its neighbors, is a real engineering challenge. Communities near proposed projects want to know what happens if something goes wrong, and they deserve a clear answer before construction begins.
The problem is that a moratorium does not provide that answer. It defers the question.
What actually resolves the siting question is a set of technically grounded local standards that give planning boards a framework for evaluating applications on their merits. These tools already exist. National fire codes, specifically NFPA 855, establish safety requirements for energy storage installations including spacing, ventilation, fire suppression, and explosion prevention. UL 9540A, a standardized test protocol, generates the data that determines how far a battery system must be placed from occupied buildings and property lines. A Hazard Mitigation Analysis, prepared by a licensed fire protection engineer, translates that test data into a site-specific safety plan. And an Emergency Response Plan, coordinated with the local fire department before a permit is issued, ensures that first responders know exactly what they are dealing with.
When a community adopts a siting ordinance built on these standards, the planning board gains the ability to approve projects that meet the bar and deny projects that do not. That is a more durable outcome than a moratorium, which expires, gets extended, and eventually forces the same conversation the community was trying to avoid.
Rockland County sits at a particularly interesting intersection. The DataBank expansion in Orangeburg has already triggered a positive SEQRA declaration requiring a full Environmental Impact Statement. Governor Hochul signed an executive order imposing a one-year statewide moratorium on large data centers consuming more than 50 megawatts. And the communities surrounding Rockland, in Orange, Ulster, Dutchess, and Sullivan Counties, are navigating their own BESS moratoriums and siting debates simultaneously.
The convergence is not a coincidence. Data centers and battery storage are increasingly co-located because battery systems can absorb the grid impact that would otherwise require expensive transmission upgrades. That means the siting debates will continue to overlap. Communities that develop a coherent local framework for evaluating energy infrastructure, one grounded in fire science rather than arbitrary setback distances, will be better positioned to distinguish between projects that belong and projects that do not.
I am not arguing that every proposed battery storage project should be approved. I am arguing that planning boards should have the technical basis to make that determination rather than defaulting to a blanket prohibition that treats all projects, and all technologies, the same way.
For communities interested in what a technically grounded BESS siting framework looks like in practice, we maintain a permitting guide that walks through the process from fire code compliance through local approval. The data is publicly available. The tools exist. The question is whether local governments will use them.
Malaquias Encarnacion is the Managing Director of Carina Energy, a firm specializing in the permitting and development of utility-scale battery energy storage systems. He can be reached at contact@carina.energy
