As communities lean more heavily on wind, sunshine and flowing water to power everyday life, a familiar challenge has emerged: reliability. The natural forces that generate clean energy are dependably unpredictable.
One solution: Battery energy storage systems – or BESS.
BESS facilities function like large, rechargeable batteries. They store electricity when it is plentiful to be used during periods of low generation. For La Plata Electric Association, battery storage is a key part of its long-term strategy to diversify its power sources and increase reliance on renewables.
But for the past six months, any forward movement on the local BESS plans has been paused. In June, La Plata County commissioners issued a moratorium on new installations to give the Planning Commission time to craft the county’s first comprehensive regulations.
Before the moratorium, rules specific to BESS were largely nonexistent, and the Community Development Department has spent several months building the framework from the ground up.
That moratorium is set to expire Dec. 16, when commissioners will vote on the proposed regulations.
In recent weeks, community opposition has grown, with some residents citing environmental, health and quality-of-life concerns. They urge stricter oversight. Others, including LPEA, argue the risks are largely misunderstood and the rules as written are too stringent, effectively making BESS development impossible.
Much of the public attention stems from LPEA’s April announcement of a $2.085 million grant it received to fund a battery project at the co-op’s Shenandoah substation just outside Durango city limits.
Some residents have since raised concerns about fire hazards, water contamination and pollution risks associated with large-scale storage.
Randall Stephens, who lives a few miles from the substation, said the draft rules allow such facilities to be placed too closely to populated or environmentally sensitive areas.
“I would say put it into open areas outside of urban centers, away from rivers, away from water supplies, like reservoirs,” he said.
Battery storage made national news in January when a large fire broke out at one of the world’s biggest battery storage facilities in Moss Landing, California. The fire burned for days, as lithium-ion battery fires are largely unaffected by water. In the months that followed, metals seeped into surrounding soil and waterways. Residents reported illness, and a lawsuit has since been filed.
The incident is an example of the associated risks that local critics continuously bring up, including Stephens.
“The Shenandoah substation is uphill, generally upwind, and about a mile from Lake Durango. If this happens, it will burn for two to three days before it burns itself out,” he said. “Columns of toxic material will go into the air several hundred feet. The wind will blow it into the Lake Durango basin or down into the Shenandoah area and into the watershed that feeds into Lake Nighthorse. It will poison our water supply.”
As of Friday, 288 people had signed a Change.org petition titled “Don’t BESS with Hesperus,” which urges the county to extend the moratorium until “a true public consensus can be reached regarding safety standards and site locations.”
LPEA CEO Chris Hansen offered a different view.
He highlighted the benefits BESS facilities bring, including charging during off-peak hours, shoring up grid stability during outages and enabling more integration of local solar generation. More storage, he said, allows the co-op to bring more renewable energy onto the system.
Many concerns raised by opponents are based on outdated information, Hansen said.
“I don’t think the Moss Landing fire is very representative of the risk that we’re evaluating now. It’s just completely different technology,” he said, noting that the Moss Landing equipment was about 15 years old.
He said battery storage technology has advanced dramatically in the past decade and any LPEA project would use the most current technology available. He noted that the rate of BESS-related fires has dropped by more than 95% in recent years.
A staff presentation in November cited similar data, reporting that only five system failures had been recorded in the U.S. in 2025.
LPEA has been in regular communication with county staff members throughout the drafting process, Hansen said, and is broadly supportive of the proposal. But one provision remains a sticking point: setbacks.
“The part that gave us the most pause was some very large setbacks from property lines, which are significantly higher than anywhere else in the country,” he said.
In most Colorado jurisdictions, he said, setbacks are measured from BESS facilities to occupied buildings. La Plata County’s draft measures the distance to property lines instead.
“If you do the property line, it would basically eliminate our ability to move forward with projects in the county, and we think that would be a huge missed opportunity for our members,” he said.
The commissioners’ meeting on Dec. 16 concerns only the regulatory framework – not the Shenandoah project itself, Hansen emphasized.
If commissioners approve the regulations on Dec. 16, the Shenandoah project or any future LPEA system would be subject to the county’s most rigorous review process.
The draft rules establish standards for where BESS facilities can be located, the permits they must obtain, fire and safety requirements, wildfire mitigation, emergency response planning, setbacks and long-term decommissioning.
Under the proposal, BESS projects are classified by scale, with larger systems requiring more extensive public review, technical documentation and permitting. The largest “utility-scale” projects – anything storing more than 10 megawatt-hours or designed primarily to export power to the regional grid – would be regulated alongside major transmission lines, pipelines and power plants.
Community Development Director Lynne Hyde and county spokeswoman Megan Graham did not immediately respond to a request for comment Friday.
jbowman@durangoherald.com
