Residents near a proposed Brighton battery facility wanted to hear about fire protection; company spoke instead about its building's architecture, proposed trees and plans to widen sidewalks

The co-founder of Flatiron Energy of Boulder, CO met with Brighton residents yesterday to talk at length about the company's proposal for a two-story, 62,000-square foot building filled with lithium-ion batteries on Electric Avenue - except for the one thing most of them wanted to hear more about: How the company would protect them from the risk of a fire at a large electric facility as close as 40 feet to some residents' property.

Brett Cullen, who is also Flatiron's chief development officer, said the company is planning a separate public meeting, in several weeks, on fire issues and the specifics of the battery technology the company hopes to use in its $200-million project at 35 Electric Ave., next to an existing Eversource substation that would funnel electricity to and from the 185-MW facility.

The company recently won approval by the Chelsea Planning Board for a similar large-scale battery storage system in that city.

At the Zoomed meeting, coordinated with the Boston Planning Department, residents said that while they appreciated hearing about some of the details of the building's modern architecture and the public improvements the company is proposing - such as the widening of a narrow sidewalk along Electric Avenue and the dramatic reduction in traffic over the 2.8-acre site's current use for storage of construction equipment and landscaping.

But said they would much rather have gotten into the fire issues first.

Top of mind for some was a fire earlier this year at a battery storage facility near San Diego that forced the evacuation of nearby businesses and homes and burned for several days.

"It just does not seem this is an appropriate use for a lot within the city and I question why we're trying to locate this in Boston," Mike Dorgan, who cited the San Diego fire, said. Rosemary Taylor added that lithium fires take as much as 40 times the amount of water as other fires to put out.

Although the company did not get into fire issues in detail, its fire-prevention consultant, Andrew Blum - who has worked on the National Fire Protection Association codes for large lithium-battery systems - said hundreds of large-scale battery systems have been built safely across the country.

He said he and Flatiron will work closely with the Boston Fire Department to develop an evacuation plan.

One resident asked him if he has a battery facility in his backyard. Blum acknowledged he did not, but said he did have a large residential storage battery in his garage.

"Obviously there are incidents that have occurred," but as the number of large-scale battery systems increase as states move to renewable energy, technical codes and design standards have been increasing the safety of the systems, he said.

Cullen added that the company realizes people want to hear about public safety issues, but the timing of the meetings is keyed to the Boston Planning Department approval process, which is focused more directly on the proposed building and its architectural and traffic effects.

Scott Greenhalgh, who is overseeing the project for the Boston Planning Department, said the project will not move forward until after BFD reviews its plans and gives its OK. Greenhalgh and Cutler said BFD officers would attend the next Electric Avenue meeting, the date for which has not yet been set.

Cullen said that none of the "several dozen" battery projects he's worked on in Massachusetts, New York and New Hampshire have ever caught on fire.

Cullen explained the rationale for putting the plant, which will have six "vaults" filled with large Samsung batteries in racks, all cooled by large rooftop air-conditioning systems, on Electric Avenue, near residences, including the Faneuil Gardens development, the Worcester Line tracks and the Massachusetts Turnpike.

Cullen said the company has been looking at the Boston area in part because ISO New England, which oversees the regional electrical grid, has forecast Boston's part of that grid is becoming less reliable, especially with the recent shutdown of Mystic station in Everett. That's a reason to look at sites in Boston rather than, as one resident suggested, near where transmission lines from ocean wind farms come ashore, he said.

The company looked for industrial sites in Boston - better to simply replace factories than tear down trees, he said - near one of Eversource's roughly 20 substations in the city, and there just aren't many parcels like that, he said, adding not all of Eversource's substations could handle the interconnection with the battery system.

Another battery company had negotiated a purchase-and-sale agreement with the current owners of the Electric Avenue site and Flatiron snapped it up.

Cullen said battery plants serve several roles in transitioning away from fossil fuels. By storing electricity, they can provide extra juice at times of peak demand or when generating plant is down - rather than the fossil-fueled "peaker" plants electricity producers now use - he said. And they can store energy from renewable power sources, such as wind and solar plants, for use at night or when the wind isn't blowing.

Cullen said the company has a tentative construction timeline that hinges on winning basic city approval next July and getting a building permit in June, 2026, which would clear the way for roughly 18 months of construction and full operation in July, 2028.

He added that the company is calling the proposal Project Lite Brite, which he said was an homage to the popular light pegboard toy some might remember from their childhood, not to the more recent incident that paralyzed the city.

Watch the meeting.