Harvey County in Kansas enacts lengthy 2.5-year BESS moratorium

Despite battery fires remaining remarkably rare, the recent meeting highlighted the hugely detrimental impact of high-profile failure incidents on the general public’s opinion of the technology. This recent moratorium follows similar rulings from local authorities in Oregon and New York, as recently reported by ESN Premium.

The BESS moratorium was raised to the commission by Harvey County’s Planning, Zoning & Environmental Director, Karen Rothe, who said she had been approached by several county residents inquiring about the technology.

“With it being such a hot topic, I believe we need to go and have a look at our regulations and make sure we are headed in the direction the county wishes,” explained Rothe.

Officials at Harvey County have a history of banning the deployment of renewable energy technology, after permanently outlawing the deployment of utility-scale solar and wind projects back in 2023.

The renewable energy ban was brought in after independent power producer (IPP) NextEra Energy Resources (NEER) approached the county back in 2022, asking for permission to develop a wind farm within their jurisdiction.

However, when drawing up these new zoning regulations, battery storage wasn’t on the county’s radar.

“There are some unclear areas of our regulations – when we redid our renewable energy regulations, standalone [BESS] was not in the forefront of what we were looking at, as we were focused on wind and solar,” outlined the County’s head of planning.

“This [battery] technology is changing quickly and I think we need some time to see where it goes … and [determine] how our citizens feel about it,” said Rothe.

Similar to other municipalities instating BESS moratoriums across the US, Rothe asked county commissioners to agree to the temporary ban so that the planning commission could carry out research prior to rewriting its zoning laws.

Local jurisdictions, such as Orange County in California and the Town of Carmel in New York, have typically enacted shorter 6-month moratoria to carry out research prior to rewriting zoning laws pertaining to BESS.

However, Harvey County’s new moratorium is unique in its length. For almost two and a half years, the development of battery storage has been temporarily banned throughout unincorporated areas of the county.

After hearing from Rothe, the three commissioners also heard from the County’s general counsellor Brad Jantz.

“Given that we have Evergy [and other utilities] doing requests for proposals that are inviting BESS across the state, it’s going to come up [in discussion] I’m afraid,” added Jantz, potentially revealing the meeting room’s sentiment towards the technology.

Serving over 1.7 million customers, Evergy is the largest utility in Kansas and has set itself the goal of reducing its carbon emissions by 70% by the end of the decade when compared to 2005 levels.

The moratorium was passed unanimously by the three County Commissioners.

Unlike the majority of moratorium cases such as this, Harvey County commissioners have yet to receive any applications for a BESS facility within their jurisdiction.

However, a project destined for Harvey County’s incorporated City of Halstead appears to have caught the attention of local residents, prompting discussion of a moratorium.

First announced back in October 2023, Boston, Massachusetts-based developer Concurrent Energy entered into a lease-purchase option with the City of Halstead to construct a standalone BESS.

Rated at 200MW/800MWh, Concurrent is seeking an interconnection agreement with the Southwest Power Pool (SPP) system operator for the project, dubbed Tallgrass Prairie Energy Center.

Since its announcement, the project has featured heavily during Halstead City meetings, with residents coming out and speaking up against the development, citing BESS fires as their primary concern.

Most recently, a group of residents attempted to ban the development of any BESS facilities in Halstead after creating an ordinance petition. However, this was recently turned away by the city after the petition’s signatures were devoid of dates.

During the public comment period prior to the enactment of Harvey County’s moratorium, several members of the anti-BESS group hoping to stop Concurrent’s project spoke on their general concerns over battery technology, and urged commissioners to enact a ban on BESS.

One Halstead resident referenced a recent fire at a battery recycling plant near Madrid in Spain, which caused the evacuation of several thousand local residents.

“There are just so many risks [with BESS], please just ban it,” said the resident.

Harvey County has uploaded a video of the meeting which can be found here.