MOSS LANDING – Highway 1 was closed and evacuations were ordered within the Moss Landing community and Elkhorn Slough area after a serious fire broke out Thursday afternoon at a battery storage plant in Moss Landing in northern Monterey County.
The fire, which burned uncontrolled Thursday night and produced huge flames and dangerous clouds of black smoke, was reported at the ability on Highway 1 around 3 p.m., Monterey County spokesman Nicholas Pasculli said.
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“It is imperative that residents obey the evacuation order and follow the instructions of the police and fire departments,” Pasculli said. “In this situation, we take the protection of life and property very seriously. We urge people to follow the evacuation order and move to a safe location.”
Evacuations of about 1,500 people have been ordered for areas from Moss Landing south of Elkhorn Slough, north of Molera Road and Monterey Dunes Way and west of Castroville Boulevard and Elkhorn Road to the ocean, he said.
Pasculli said the Monterey County Sheriff's Office called other agencies within the county to help with the emergency.
“It is a serious incident,” he said. “All resources from the county and our neighboring jurisdictions were deployed to assist with this incident.”
The plant belongs to the Texas company Vistra Energy and is considered one of the most important battery storage power plants on this planet. It incorporates tens of hundreds of lithium batteries that store electricity generated through the day from solar and other sources to be used at night. Such battery storage plants are a vital a part of California's efforts to convert most of its electricity generation to renewable sources.
“You can’t sugarcoat it. “This is a disaster,” Monterey County Supervisor Glen Church told KSBW-TV. “This is extremely disturbing.”
Church said the fireplace was “contained” in a concrete constructing whose roof had collapsed.
“We don't think there's any real danger of it expanding outward and penetrating further into where it's inside,” he said. “There are a lot of batteries in there and the system is on fire quite a lot.”
The plant is positioned on the location of a now-closed Fifties PG&E Moss Landing natural gas plant, visible from its huge smokestacks near Moss Landing Harbor. The first phase was accomplished in 2020 and expanded to 750 megawatts in 2023. Vistra sells the electricity stored there to PG&E, which also owns a separate 182-megawatt, 256-tesla battery storage facility on the north side of the location. “Megapack” battery packs. This system didn’t look like burning at 8 p.m
Employees on the Vistra plant called the North Monterey County Fire Protection District for assistance after a fireplace was discovered on the 300-megawatt Phase I energy storage facility, company spokeswoman Jenny Lyon said in an email to this news organization.
Lyon said all personnel were safely evacuated.
“Our top priority is the safety of the community and our staff,” she said, “and Vistra greatly appreciates the continued support of our local emergency responders.”
Lyon said the reason for the fireplace has not yet been determined, but an investigation will begin once the fireplace is extinguished.
Lithium battery fires are notoriously difficult to place out. They burn at high temperatures and may emit toxic gases that may cause respiratory problems, skin burns and eye irritation.
There have been other fires at the ability.
Fires broke out on the Vistra plant on September 4, 2021 and February 14, 2022. Investigations revealed that they were brought on by a malfunction of a sprinkler system that released water and caused several units to overheat.
Then in September 2022, a fireplace broke out at PG&E's Elkhorn battery plant. Police closed Highway 1 for 12 hours. An investigation determined the cause was an improperly installed vent guard on considered one of the 256 units, which allowed rainwater to enter and short-circuit the batteries. There were no injuries to firefighters, PG&E employees or the general public.
Governor Gavin Newsom then signed a law requiring battery storage power plants in California to work with local fire departments to develop emergency plans and increase fire protection.
“Expanding the state’s battery storage is critical to achieving our clean energy goals,” state Sen. John Laird, D-Santa Cruz, who authored the bill, said in an interview last yr. “But we also need to ensure that these facilities have safety systems in place to protect the health and well-being of workers and surrounding communities.”
Last summer, after two fires broke out at San Diego County battery storage facilities, San Diego County regulators asked county officials to impose stricter rules that may restrict battery storage facilities near homes, schools and other facilities. And when Vistra proposed constructing a big battery plant in Morro Bay, residents there approved a measure on the November ballot that they hoped would block construction.
Battery storage has increased sevenfold in California over the past five years, from 1,474 megawatts in 2020 to 10,383 megawatts last summer. One megawatt is sufficient to power 750 households.
On Thursday evening, the Castroville Recreation Center at 11261 Crane St. served as a brief evacuation point for individuals who needed to depart their homes.
Highway 1 is closed in each directions between Highway 183 and Struve Road. There isn’t any estimated time for the roadway to reopen.
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