SHUTESBURY — A general town bylaw creating a licensing process for large-scale battery storage in Shutesbury has been struck down by the state attorney general’s office, for both unreasonably regulating renewable energy and improperly regulating zoning matters.

For Hadley, though, almost all aspects of a revised zoning bylaw allowing standalone energy storage systems was approved by Attorney General Andrea Joy Campbell.

The ruling on Shutesbury’s bylaw is nearly identical to the attorney general’s rejection of a Wendell bylaw, also adopted last spring, with the state office contending that the town failed to abide by procedural safeguards embedded into state zoning laws.

The Nov. 25 communication to Shutesbury Town Clerk Grace Bannasch from Assistant Attorney General Nicole B. Caprioli cites that energy storage systems, or ESS, like other solar uses, are protected under Massachusetts General LawChapter 40A, Section 3, and that efforts to prohibit, limit and set requirements for their construction and operation through a general bylaw isn’t appropriate.

“The town’s general licensing bylaw attempts to impose extensive regulations on the construction and operation of ESS, including a complete prohibition under the general bylaws of any ESS over 10 megawatts,” Caprioli writes. “Certain requirements could potentially be an unreasonable regulation in violation of section 3’s zoning protections, even if they were properly adopted as a zoning bylaw.”

The bylaw was adopted at annual Town Meeting in April as Article 26, with a majority of residents in attendance, after extensive discussion, approving the measure to allow small-scale energy storage systems with a net generation capacity of less than 1 megawatt by right, while systems with a capacity between 1 and 10 megawatts must receive approval from a new seven-member licensing board created in the bylaw. Energy storage systems with a net generation capacity greater than 10 megawatts would be prohibited.

Planning Board member Michael DeChiara said the attorney general’s reasoning for striking down Shutesbury’s general bylaw was similar to why Wendell’s was also rejected. DeChiara said it will be up to the Select Board to respond, since general bylaws are under its purview.

Caprioli wrote that the town’s general bylaw also doesn’t supplement the regulation of a use already governed by the zoning bylaws. “Rather, the general bylaw seeks to impose extensive regulations, including prohibitions on ESS over a certain size or ‘ground alterations’ of the ESS within 200 feet from drinking water wells, despite the use being otherwise allowed under the zoning bylaws without these siting requirements,” Caprioli writes. “Further supporting the conclusion that the general bylaw provisions intend to regulate zoning matters.”

Hadley bylaw

Annual Town Meeting approved a revised bylaw for Hadley in May that, for the first time, explicitly allows stand-alone energy storage systems that aren’t connected to solar arrays. This provides conditions and guidance for such projects, allowing them in the town’s agricultural-residential and industrial zones, though they are prohibited in the aquifer protection district as a way to maintain the town’s water supply.

Hadley’s bylaw was mostly approved, with just one section rejected, with Caprioli citing an “unreasonable regulation” of prohibiting earth removal during installation.

“Because this requirement would appear to result in a prohibition of all large capacity ESS if even a shovelful of earth removal is required, this requirement on its face amounts to an unreasonable regulation of ESS,” Caprioli writes.

The attorney general’s office also warns that the bylaw’s provisions could be problematic if they “are used to deny an ESS, or otherwise applied in ways that make it impracticable or uneconomical to build solar energy systems and related structures,”and also expressed concern that the bylaw has the potential to be so limiting as to not allow for large-scale capacity.

In fact, attorneys representing Zero-Point Development of Worcester, who have brought forward a proposed project in a gravel pit off Breckenridge Road, had asked that the zoning bylaw be thrown out.

That letter said that only 350 acres across all of Hadley are realistically developable for a battery storage system, even though the zones where they are allowed encompass approximately 13,365 acres of the 14,850 acres in Hadley.

Scott Merzbach can be reached at smerzbach@gazettenet.com.