Dave Alley
SAN LUIS OBISPO, Calif. – Several members of the public raised concerns about the soon-to-be-completed Nipomo battery storage facility on Tuesday morning at the San Luis Obispo County Board of Supervisors meeting.
Located at the southern end of Nipomo on Joshua Street, Caballero Battery Storage Project has been under construction for several months and is now close to completion.
The intent of facility is to store excess renewable energy produced during the day and later release the power back into the grid during peak demand hours from 4 p.m. to 9 p.m.
According to a release from operators Fengate Asset Management and Alpha Omega Power, when completed, the six-acre project will provide enough energy to power more than 100,000 homes for up to four hours during daily peak electricity demand periods.
In light of the recent fire at the Moss Landing Vistra Power Plant in Monterey County, the project is causing some residents in Nipomo and nearby areas to worry about the safety of the facility.
“This will be a huge impact if there ever was an incident in this area,” said Victor Guiterrez, who lives directly behind the plant and spoke during Tuesday’s board meeting. “There’s talk about the fire department being trained and all that. That’s fine and dandy, but there is no fire department anywhere that is trained for any type of catastrophe like what happened in Moss Landing.”
Gutierrez, who worked as a firefighter for more than 30 years before retirement, pointed out the potential hazards from the plant are not confined to the Nipomo area.
“It’s the community of Nipomo, and the Santa Maria and northern Santa Barbara County,” said Gutierrez. “If an event happens there, just think about the evacuations. It is near impossible to evacuate that many people, let alone the greater population of Santa Maria. We know that the Moss Landing incident affected people 10, 20 miles away. Schools were closed 70 miles away, so this is a huge impact. We are concerned and that we were never notified. The community was never notified of the potential risk. I know the fire department’s trying to do as much as they can to mitigate some of these issues, but there is nothing out there that can mitigate a runaway thermal fire and that’s our biggest concern.”
During the public comment period of the meeting, several people expressed additional concerns about what they described was the lack of open communication about the facility during its approval, and later, construction process.
“We didn’t find out about it until it was already built,” said Terri Stricklin, who has lived in Nipomo for more than 40 years. “That’s unacceptable. Normally, when something as controversial as this project is being proposed, the county supervisor notifies the public that we need to come to these meetings. This is an important issue and we weren’t given that opportunity, which is why it had no opposition, because we didn’t know about it.”
Fourth District Supervisor Jimmy Paulding pointed out during the meeting, as well as on social media a few days earlier, the project did meet all the requirements as it was being reviewed before earning final approval in 2023.
“This project was approved by our planning commission,” said Paulding. “All of the county’s current procedures were followed to give notice to the surrounding neighbors, the residents, who lived within a 300 foot radius. It was posted in the paper. There was a South County Advisory Council meeting to discuss this project, but it was during it was done in 2021 during Covid and I think somebody raised that point today during public comment and I think they made a good point. What I want to see is that we expand those notification requirements to people who live within 1,000 foot radius moving forward.”
As for safety, Paulding has said CAL FIRE San Luis Obispo County, San Luis Obispo County Counsel, San Luis Obispo County Planning and Building, and an Independent Fire Protection Engineer have reviewed and approved the Emergency Response Plan.
He also pointed out on his social media multi-agency training was conducted in October 2024 with CAL FIRE San Luis Obispo County, SLO Haz Mat, local law enforcement and neighboring fire agencies, and additional onsite emergency training drills are planned, with invitations extended to fire agencies that were unable to attend the first session.
“I know many folks are very concerned about the safety of this facility,” said Paulding. “This facility is going through the final testing process, CAL FIRE and their fire protection specialist are reviewing the project against all of the fire codes to make sure that it’s safe and are working on an emergency response plan. There will be more to learn in terms of what that consists of and I’m here to help to try to get as much information out to the community as possible.”
During public comment, many speakers urged supervisors to do what they can to potentially temporarily halt or stop the Caballero plant from starting operation.
“We are asking them to pause,” said Gutierrez. “We want this stop. We want to see what happens in Moss Landing to the life, property and the environment of that community before we continue and having this thing ever up in our backyard.”
An attempt to stop the project was not considered by the supervisors, particularly due to potential litigation the county could face if they were to try and reverse the approval it was given three years ago.
“Because the project was approved, this particular developer has what’s called vested rights,” said Paulding. “They have a contract to proceed with the project, so even if we wanted to pause it, pending further evaluation of the safety around these types of facilities, if our Board of Supervisors did that, we would incur financial and legal liability stopping a project that’s already been approved.”
According to the operators of the project, completion is expected sometime in early 2025.
News Channel reached out to Alpha Omega Power and asked for an interview and additional information about the Caballero Battery Storage Project, but did not receive a response as of Tuesday evening.
