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Seeking time to come up with local rules, the San Benito County Board of Supervisors has temporarily frozen approvals for large-scale energy storage projects.
At its March 10 meeting, the board voted 4-1 to impose a 45-day moratorium, which can be extended to nearly two years, to allow the county to draft rules alongside stakeholders and the one company currently pursuing a local project, Allium Solar.
Supervisor Kollin Kosmicki framed the moratorium as a matter of public safety. He pointed to Moss Landing’s battery energy storage facility in Monterey County—one of the largest facilities of its kind in the world—which burned in January 2025, sending toxic smoke into surrounding communities.
“It’s an obligation to take a step back,” Kosmicki said, “to really put a thoughtful approach into this issue, and to come back with a good ordinance.”
California has deemed battery energy storage systems as critical infrastructure for the transition to renewable energy. These systems consist of rows of large battery containers that store power—often generated by solar or wind—and release it when demand surges, which often happens during the summer or when heatwaves strain the electrical grid.
In 2025, Boston-based Longroad Energy proposed building a 900-acre facility north of the Hollister airport, called Allium Solar, which would generate 110 MW of solar energy and store an equivalent amount in batteries. That would be enough, the company claims, to power more than 110,000 homes for up to four hours daily during peak demand. However, the facility’s power is reportedly contracted to be sent outside the county.
Longroad Development Manager Laren Cyphers told the supervisors the moratorium was unnecessary. She argued that the safety measures for a battery energy storage system occurs during the design and permit phases, and that a moratorium would only delay those stages. Allium is currently the only applicant in the county.
“The county does have time to develop its standards through the normal process while allowing the entitlement work to continue,” Cyphers said.
Sophia Schwirzke, Community Relations Manager at Central Coast Community Energy, urged the board to develop its own standards, but said a moratorium was not the way to do so. She warned that blocking a project could backfire, as developers could bypass local authority entirely by pursuing state-level permitting.
“Communities that have attempted to ban energy storage have seen developers utilize the state’s permitting pathway instead,” Schwirzke said. “Because that process is administered at the state level, it removes local control and opportunities for community input.”
Supervisor Mindy Sotelo was the only dissenting vote. She shared Schwirzke’s concern and compared the situation to the state’s Builders’ Remedy, which allows developers to propose housing projects in areas not zoned for them when a county fails to submit its long-term housing plan on time.
“This is Builders’ Remedy all over again,” Sotelo said.
Supervisor Angela Curro said she was reluctant to halt processing of Allium’s application, preferring to let environmental studies continue. She voted in favor after County Counsel Gregory Priamos clarified that staff could still work with Longroad Energy to gather their input on the new regulations.
Supervisors Dom Zanger and Ignacio Velazquez were in favor of the moratorium.
“What this is doing is giving us more time,” Velazquez said. “This is why we need the moratorium—so we don’t make mistakes. We have to get on this, and we have to do it as quickly as possible.”
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