Councilors to look into large battery storage systems planned for Brighton and the Roslindale/Hyde Park line

The City Council agreed today to look into the environmental and safety issues related to plans for at least two industrial-sized electricity-storage plants, one on the aptly named Electric Avenue in Brighton, the other on a wooded hill behind the Stop & Shop mall on American Legion Highway on the Roslindale/Hyde Park meet that was most recently in the news for being the summer home of Moodini the Steer.

City Councilors Liz Breadon (Allston/Brighton), Enrique Pepén (Hyde Park, Roslindale and Mattapan) and Brian Worrell (Dorchester, Mattapan) called for the hearing.

Breadon said such plants could help Boston meet its long-term environmental needs, in part by creating a way to store energy from wind and solar plants for use when demand is particularly high or when "it's not windy or sunny." But she said the plants, which typically use long banks of large lithium batteries, also pose unique public-safety hazards because lithium fires can be difficult to extinguish. That's of particular concern because the ideal places for them tend to be in densely packed urban areas, she said.

Of the two proposals, the Brighton one is further along. Flatiron Energy of Boulder, CO, last month filed plans for a two-story building on a 2.8-acre site now used by a construction company, next to an Eversource substation. The building would be divided into ten "vaults" filled with racks of batteries that could be swapped in and removed as needed like computers in a server facility, the company said.

However, the company's otherwise detailed "project notification form" contained no details at all on the types or specific numbers of batteries, because that's federal "Critical Energy Infrastructure Information" that is supposed to be kept secret and out of the hands of would-be evil doers. Flatiron acquired the rights to the land from another battery company. At a meeting Monday of local residents appointed by the Planning Department, the company said the facility would use lithium batteries able to store 185 MW in total.

Pepén said today that Eversource last year told nearby residents it was considering a battery storage system on 12 acres of land its predecessor NStar acquired in 2014 atop Crane Ledge on the Rosindale/Hyde Park line, then never did anything with. Unlike Flatiron, Eversource has yet to file any formal plans with the city.

The land, originally part of a driving range that never opened, is separate from the land on the hill owned by a Mattapan church that wants to sell to a Texas developer to put up an apartment complex.

Pepén said that in addition to looking at safety issues related to lithium batteries, he also wants to get a commitment from Eversource to be fully open with nearby residents - and to start thinking about the "community benefits" it will offer to the surrounding neighborhoods in exchange for city approval of any battery plant.

Worrell echoed Breadon and Pepén's comments. His district line is not far far from the Eversource land.