Engie seeks to reassure locals on safety of 300MW BESS project in Texas

Initial development of the project was carried out by Belltown Power, before Engie acquired the project as part of a huge 6GW solar and storage pipeline during 2022.

Engie’s acquisition of the Belltown Power portfolio represented the company’s first major move into the US energy storage space, which was followed up a year later through the acquisition of Broad Reach Power.

Through these acquisitions, Engie has solidified itself as one of the most prominent BESS developers in the US. It recently secured investment from real estate infrastructure and investment firm CBRE Investment Management (CBRE IM) in its 2.4GW operational US portfolio, spread across 31 projects in two states, California and Texas.

Belltown Power incorporated a business subsidiary for the project, BT Block Storage, LLC, during July 2021, that it used to secure a tax abatement from Fannin County a year later. Engie has since changed the name of the business subsidiary associated with the project to Platinum Energy Storage, LLC.

Despite commencing development a few years back, a handful of local residents claim to have only learnt about the project during the past few months after reading about it on Facebook and other online chat forums.

Since receiving the tax abatement, Fannin County has replaced its entire Board of Commissioners, who have publicly expressed their desire for the project to be moved elsewhere.

During a recent meeting held in Savoy, echoing the views of the entire board and stoking the Town’s anti-BESS sentiment, Fannin County Judge Newt Cunnigham described the abatement as a “form of exploitation.”

In order to alleviate concerns associated with the project, Engie recently held a public information meeting for the residents of Savoy centering around fire mitigation measures.

As well as a learning opportunity for residents, recently appointed Fannin County Fire marshal Troy Hudson said that it was also informative for locally appointed officials.

“We have limited firefighting capability to deal with a [potential fire] incident such as this … we are learning a lot of information ourselves on how to deal with this,” said Hudson, during an interview with ABC News after the meeting.

During the meeting, Hudson said that he was recently left surprised, after only just hearing the project had been sold to Engie.

With the project due online imminently, Hudson has requested a meeting with Engie to ensure the project complies with National Fire Protection Association’s (NFPA’s) NFPA 855 Standard for the Installation of Energy Storage Systems.

Hudson, alongside the Fannin County Board of Commissioners, were due to carry out a walk-through of the facility with Engie this week.

The project is scheduled to be cleared for commercial operations by the Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT) on 19 August 2025, according to the system operator’s latest interconnection queue report.

Along with its Platinum project, Engie holds a tax abatement agreement for another standalone BESS in Fannin County, dubbed Masroor Energy Storage, which the developer has yet to commence construction on.

Although last week’s announcement to temporarily pause US-China tariffs offered a glimmer of hope, independent power producers (IPPs), such as Engie, have been shifting business strategies to mitigate the impact of any future import tariff policies.

As part of Engie’s quarterly financial results released last week, CEO Catherine MacGregor opened up a speech to investors by outlining how the company was “already moving before the current administration’s action… and have largely de-risked our exposure.”

The CEO revealed that due to very “proactive” sourcing, the company has been able to reallocate batteries purchased in 2024 for projects in 2025, enabling its 1.3GW US portfolio of under-construction BESS projects to remain on schedule.

Although MacGregor recognised the importance of the 90-day pause, similarly to other companies, the CEO said that Engie was “pausing for clarity on future tariffs”, before continuing development on projects that have yet to reach the financial investment decision (FID) stage.

In a recent interview with ESN Premium, Head of Structuring at MN8 Energy, Yinghuang Ji, expressed a similar attitude to the tariffs, saying the “ongoing situations have people putting things on hold a bit … there’s a lot of noise, making it hard to make investment decisions.”

During the speech, MacGregor also acknowledged the recently announced “budget reconciliation bill”, that threatens to phase-out and eliminate tax credits established by the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA).

Despite a former senior advisor to the US treasury describing the bill as a “sledgehammer disguised as a scalpel”, MacGregor found the first draft of the bill to be “a little bit more constructive than what we might have expected.”

With the ongoing uncertainty of future tariffs and tax credit repeals, MacGregor reminded investors of Engie’s 80GW project pipeline outside of North America. “If needed, we could allocate capital originally intended for the US into other attractive markets where we are already well established,” said the CEO.

MacGregor chose to highlight the company’s presence in Chile, which, alongside China and Australia, led the charge for BESS deployment in April, as recently reported by Energy-Storage.news.