CHESTERFIELD — Residents at a special Town Meeting Wednesday night unanimously approved a bylaw governing battery energy storage systems, or BESS.
The attorney general will need to sign off before the rules take effect.
According to Town Clerk Sandy Wickland, 46 people attended the meeting. Every person in the room, representing approximately 5% of the town’s electorate, raised their hands in support of the bylaw.
The bylaw has been in the works for a number of months. The intent behind it was to prepare for the possibility of development of large-scale solar arrays in town that feature large battery units.
However, the bylaw does not specifically single out solar arrays. Attempts at bylaws or moratoriums for large-scale arrays have been turned down by the attorney general in other neighboring towns, including Worthington.
There are fears in these towns that large lithium-ion batteries will catch fire, and overwhelm the local volunteer fire departments while also desecrating the rural environment with pollution and runoff.
Chesterfield’s bylaw requires projects to have a 50-foot setback in the main residential corridor of town. The central corridor also will not include limitations of Tier 1 batteries, which store 1-megawatt hour (MWh) of electricity generated from a renewable source. Smaller lithium-ion devices found in cars, electronics, or backup generators are explicitly exempt in the bylaw.
In other, more rural areas of town, a 200-foot setback has been enacted.
The proposed bylaw would retain a 20% coverage limit on lots, which is already included in town regulations. Board members said the limit, combined with setbacks and minimum lot-size requirements, could significantly restrict the amount of land available for a solar facility.
