Two months on from the fire at the Moss Landing energy storage facility, the California Public Utility Commission (CPUC) voted to implement new safety standards for battery energy storage systems (BESS) facilities.
General Order 167, which allows for BESS facility maintenance and operation standards to be added and enforced, has been modified to ensure that BESS facility owners must add the new safety standards set in Senate Bill (SB) 1383.
That bill, which was approved in 2022, said BESS facility owners must maintain records of outages and provide them to the CPUC daily.
The new legislation also makes it clear that BESS facility owners must implement emergency response and action plans, as set forth in SB 38.
The modified order also included other technical updates to the standards to “improve safety, reliability, and effectiveness of operation and maintenance activities” for BESS facility owners.
This includes establishing new standards for the technical logbooks of BESS’ and expanding the requirements in the emergency plans for BESS facilities.
It is not the only legislative change that will be brought about following the Moss Landing fire.
The fire caused concern for the safety of residential, business areas and schools due to how close the facility was to these areas.
AB-303 proposes that new BESS projects capable of storing 200MWh or more if it is within 3,200 feet of sensitive receptor or on an an environmentally sensitive site are prohibited, among other changes. It is presently being reviewed in the committee process.
