faq

They plan to site this facility approximately one mile east of Highway 14, just above the community of Rancho San Marcos, just west of Eldorado, and south of Rancho Viejo, (see map below). In other words, this industrial facility will be in the immediate vicinity of over 10,000 homes and more than 25,000 residents in those three communities as well as four schools: the Santa Fe Community College, the Institute of American Indian Arts, the Turquoise Trail Charter School, and the Eldorado Community School.

Do you know that there are only a couple solar projects with BESS over 50 MW in New Mexico and none appear to be located anywhere near residential areas? With so much available land and brownfields (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brownfield_land) in our state we don’t understand why our officials are even considering this location. (See Alternate Locations below.)

LOCATION AND SCALE OF PROPOSED AES PROJECT

Alternate Locations:

The federal Bureau of Land Management recently identified in February 2024, as part of its updated Western Solar Plan, nearly 3 million acres in New Mexico alone that are open right now for application for solar development. These lands are within 10 miles of existing and/or planned transmission lines.

Why don’t we start building Utility-scale solar facilities on these available public lands and away from residential areas and schools? It is time for the federal, state and county governments to work together developing a comprehensive solar plan that works for the public good instead of enriching multi-billion dollar corporations.

The Roosevelt Institute released a study in October 2024 stating “There are nearly 226 million acres of high-benefit, low harm area available for solar deployment and the U.S. only needs between 3.5 million to 15 million to meet solar deployment targets.

The paper outlines four key roles for the federal government to play in advancing solar: 

1.  Conducting whole-of-government, nationwide, multi-scale land use and site planning to identify high-benefit, low-harm sites across the county.  This will require resourcing, expansion and coordination of planning capabilities currently underfunded and scattered across federal agencies;

2.  Coordinating federal, state Tribal and local governments to ensure national planning aligns national decarbonization priorities with local priorities;

3.  Embedding planned community, worker and environmental benefits into solar deployment and development to build trust and support for the energy transition; and

4.  Creating and expanding support for publicly owned, worker-owned, and non-profit solar deployment companies, unburdened by the duty of generating high profits for shareholders.

https://rooseveltinstitute.org/publications/planning-to-build-faster-a-solar-energy-case-study/

There are a number of concerns with a project of this size and complexity, first and foremost of which is fire from the batteries.

“Lithium-ion batteries are prone to overheating, swelling, electrolyte leakage venting, fires, smoke and explosions in worst case scenarios involving thermal runaway. Gases produced as a result of a fire, smoke and/or thermal runaway can accumulate to a combustible level in the installation location and cause an explosion.”– “Battery Hazards for Large Energy Storage Systems” by Judith A Jeevarajan   https://pubs.acs.org/doi/full/10.1021/acsenergylett.2c01400

“The primary cause of an energy storage system fire is caused by having a battery cell go into thermal runaway. During thermal runaway, the heat generated within the battery cell exceeds its ability to dissipate. When this occurs, the battery cell can cause adjacent battery cells to overheat, potentially driving them into thermal runaway. If this chain reaction occurs across multiple battery cells, it can spread from modules to the rack and result in a significant fire.” and “During a thermal runaway event, heat inside the battery can also cause the battery’s electrolyte to evaporate out of the battery cell, creating a mixture of volatile gases that can explode if the battery system is not properly vented.” – “Mitigating Thermal Runaway Risks and Lithium-ion Battery Fires” by Chris Wright https://www.cea3.com/cea-blog/mitigating-thermal-runaway-risks-and-lithium-ion-battery-fires

According to a recent article in the NY Times, brush fires are now more prevalent and destroy more homes than forest fires. https://www.nytimes.com/2023/11/09/climate/forest-fires-grasslands.html?smid=nytcore-ios-share&referringSource=articleShare

Since the fire chiefs in Santa Fe city, county and state acknowledge that the single biggest threat we face out here are wildfires, the question then becomes is it wise to site a known source of fires in the middle of so many residential communities surrounded by all the grasses and trees in that area, otherwise known as Wilderness-Urban Interface or WUI. https://www.usfa.fema.gov/wui/

The U.S. Department of Energy defines four main types of solar projects, see page 16 in their “Solar Power In Your Community, A Guide for local governments….”  https://www.energy.gov/sites/default/files/2023-03/Solar_Power_in_Your_Community_Guidebook_March2023.pdf

Residential: Also referred to as “rooftop solar”, residential solar is a form of distributed energy with solar panels mounted on individual rooftops. Residential solar deployments can range in size from 3 kW – 11kW.

Commercial: Commercial solar is a larger form of distributed solar energy that encompasses rooftop and ground-mounted deployment. Commercial solar deployments can range in size from 100 kW – 2 MW.

Community: Also referred to as “solar gardens” or “shared solar”, community solar is another form of distributed energy where customers can buy or lease a portion of an off-site shared solar project. Community solar sites are typically <5 MW in size.

Utility-Scale: Utility-scale solar deployments are ground-mounted systems that feed the generated electricity directly into the electric grid. Utility-scale solar deployments can range in size from 5 – 100 MW.

*Note these MW references are for generating power, not battery storage.

We believe the AES Rancho Viejo Solar Project, which proposes generating 96 MW of power, is not Commercial Solar, but rather a Utility-Scale project, and thus should not be allowed a Conditional Use Permit (CUP), but instead be reviewed as a Development of County Wide Impact (DCI) which allows for more review and oversight.

Since state or local laws may define solar sizes differently, we also looked at the Santa Fe County Sustainable Land Development Code (SLDC). It references that a Conditional Use Permit (CUP) may apply in some zoned areas for Commercial Solar, however we could not find any reference to Utility-Scale Solar. See Santa Fe County Sustainable Land Development Code 2016:  https://www.santafecountynm.gov/media/files/SLDC%201.20.17.pdf

Lithium-ion battery fires are not like normal fires as they are, in fact, a chemical reaction which produced their own source of oxygen and so cannot be extinguished by any conventional means such as water or foam. These fires also release highly toxic hydrofluoric acid, cyanide and other gases that can explode upon ignition and often require a “shelter in place order” or an evacuation of surrounding areas. 

During the most recent AES BESS fire on Sept. 5, 2024 in Escondido, CA — AES’ third fire in five years, over 500 businesses were evacuated and three schools evacuated and closed for two days.  Nearby neighborhoods were required to shelter in place and the fire was left to burn itself out.  AES’ previous battery fires in Surprise, AZ in 2019 and Chandler, AZ in 2022 also required evacuation of the other industrial facilities in the area.

As a result of the difficulty in extinguishing such fires, the standard firefighting procedure is to now let the batteries burn out by themselves – a process that can require days or even weeks in some instances. Lithium-ion battery fires can also appear to be out and then reignite later so the facility must be monitored closely during and after a fire. “In this case the safest thing to do for everyone involved is to allow it to burn itself out,” said Orange County Fire Coordinator, (see link). https://westchester.news12.com/fire-at-battery-storage-facility-burns-off-combustible-material

At present, our local firefighters say they do not have enough first responders and Haz mat equipment, as well as the expertise to deal with large, toxic, chemical fires.

AES has selected the more dangerous Li-ion type NCA battery for the Rancho Viejo Project. NCA batteries are the least safe, most likely to result in Thermal Runaway and burn the hottest and fastest.

When the District Court ruled that the hazards of the batteries AES plans to use were not trade secrets, AES was required to disclose their test results to the public. As of June 23, 2025, AES and the County have yet to include the un-redacted report on the County’s website.

However when CEC attained a copy of the unredacted report, and our engineers reviewed it, we found that:

THE BATTERY DESIGN AES PLANS TO USE
FAILED 3 OF 4 SYSTEM TESTS

 It failed the cell level testing — it failed the module level testing — and it failed the Unit level testing. — It only passed the installation level testing based on a stripped down representation of the installation. — This shows that the safety of the site is completely dependent on the proper operation of all of the complex battery controls, fire detection, and suppression systems that sense for cell failures. 

Here are both versions from their HMA Report: REDACTED and UN-REDACTED.

There are actually two parts to this question. What are the fire suppression systems and part two, do they actually work?

WHAT ARE THE FIRE SUPRESSION SYSTEMS?

There are fire suppression systems inside the battery containers, which require a chemical called Novec 1230. Novec 1230 is the branded name of this chemical by the 3M company who has announced they will stop manufacturing Novec 1230 by the end of 2025 because it contains PFAs which are otherwise known as “forever chemicals”. 

https://www.forbes.com/sites/brianbushard/2022/12/20/3m-will-discontinue-use-of-hazardous-pfas-forever-chemicals-by-2025/?sh=1989a97831d0

https://news.3m.com/2022-12-20-3M-to-Exit-PFAS-Manufacturing-by-the-End-of-2025

PFAs are man-made, toxic chemicals that have been detected in both food and water.  https://www.atsdr.cdc.gov/pfas/health-effects/exposure.html

3M was recently fined $10.3 billion for polluting waterways with Novec 1230, and the money from that fine is to build water treatment plants to try and remove the toxic chemical from the municipal water supplies.  However, there is no way to remove these chemicals from groundwater, aquifers, or wells. 

www.nytimes.com/2023/06/22/business/3m-settlement-forever-chemicals-lawsuit.html 

https://www.npr.org/2023/06/22/1183922303/3m-reaches-10-3-billion-settlement-over-contamination-of-water-systems#:~:text=—%20Chemical%20manufacturer%203M%20Co.%20will,products%2C%20the%20company%20said%20Thursday.

AES says it plans to use a chemical called FK-5-1-12 in their fire suppression system.  This is the exact same chemical as Novec 1230.  They also claim that “based on independent assessment, this chemical poses no threat to the environment.”  As of yet, AES has not provided who this third-party assessment was done by. Nor do we know where or to what extent their particular fire suppression system has been used or tested. And the fact remains that, even with fire suppression systems, these battery containers can still catch fire.

DO THE SUPPRESSION SYTEMS WORK?

The reality of the fire suppression systems currently used in BESS containers is that they do not stop thermal runaway, the most dangerous of all events in BESS.

On page 9 of AES’ own First Responder Mitigation Guidelines, a separate document submitted by AES to the County as part of their revised application on August 30, 2024, states, “The fire suppression system(s) at the BESS containers are designed to suppress small fires within the ancillary equipment and there is no expectation that a thermal runaway type fire within the battery banks will be suppressed.” This comes directly from AES.

In addition the Clean Energy Associates’ (no relation to CEC) February 2024 study entitled “BESS Quality Risks: A summary of the most common Battery Energy Storage System manufacturing defects” states:

“The past several years have shown that thermal runaway poses a significant risk to the energy storage industry. Data collected from CEA’s factory quality inspections of BESS systems have found that these risks still exist:

26% of inspected energy storage systems had quality issues related to fire detection and suppression system.

18% of inspected systems had quality issues related to the thermal management system.

Fire suppression and thermal management systems are critical for functional safety, and defects in these systems can lead to increased risk of fire.”

Please click on the link below if you would like to read the entire study which points out many other potential sources of problems in these systems which have to do with the following two contributors which are very important to remember when we are talking about these huge Utility-scale projects such as the Rancho Viejo Solar Project:

1. “The BESS integration process is highly manual and labor-intensive, with less stringent quality control procedures.”
   Let’s stop for a moment and think about the installers who will be installing 570,000 individual battery cells in the 38 containers with only 1 defect necessary to potentially cause a thermal runaway.

2.  “Systems are very complex and are vulnerable to underlying problems originating from defects in upstream components that were not caught during earlier quality checks.”

https://info.cea3.com/hubfs/CEA%20BESS%20Quality%20Risks%20Report.pdf

Yes. There have been three lithium-ion battery fires in AES facilities in the last five years including the most recent one in 2024.

September 5, 2024

The most recent was a lithium-ion battery fire in a battery energy storage container of the type that AES touts as a safer battery storage enclosure. Located in Escondido, CA, the fire necessitated the evacuation of more than 500 businesses and three schools which were closed for two days. Nearby neighborhoods were required to shelter in place and the fire was left to burn itself out. As we have learned this is the preferred method of handling this type of fire since they cannot be put out by conventional firefighting methods.

As a direct result of the severe disruption to this community, the Escondido city council voted unanimously on October 8, 2024 to pass a temporary Moratorium prohibiting new commercial BESS developments within the city.  In November 2024 they will vote on whether to extend the Moratorium for an additional ten months and subsequently for an additional 12 month period of time. The Moratorium was enacted until new land use policies and standards related to BESS are developed. Something which Santa Fe County also does not have.

The Escondido city council argued “that the city’s current zoning regulations do not contain criteria specifically for BESS facilities.  It said that without adequate land use policies and standards in place, the city of Escondido cannot guarantee the implementation of (CA) Senate Bill 38, which requires every BESS facility in California to establish an emergency response and emergency action plan for the facility to protect surrounding residents, neighboring properties, emergency responders, and the environment.”

April 19, 2019

The most dangerous event in the history of BESS facilities. This was AES’ first lithium-ion battery fire in Surprise, AZ in a much smaller facility than what is planned here — only 2.16 MW compared to the 48 MW/192 MWh BESS planned for the Rancho Viejo Solar Project. It was an extremely serious situation in that their battery management system did not alert AES to the fire but a passerby who saw the toxic gas pooling near the facility called the fire department. The fire department had not been alerted to the fact that this facility held dangerous lithium-ion batteries and had received no training from AES as to how to handle a fire in this facility. When after waiting a considerable time, the firefighters opened the door of the facility, an explosion occurred and severely injured four firefighters — one who sustained brain damage when he was thrown more than 70 feet from the explosion and less severe injuries for another four firefighters and one policeman.

https://www.12news.com/article/news/local/valley/faulty-battery-system-triggered-explosion-that-injured-surprise-firefighters-last-year-report-finds/75-b1f2d532-ef81-4fdc-855d-e8e2a32b6350

A Battery Safety Science webinar overview of the 2019 Surprise AZ thermal runaway incident, the investigation’s contributing factors, and recommendations for the fire service, code officials, utility companies, and manufacturers to prevent similar incidents. See YouTube: Fire Service Considerations investigations of AZ LI-ion ESS incident.

 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mn9irm8djdM

April 18, 2022

AES’ second lithium-ion battery fire came almost two years to the day after their first fire. It was in Chandler, Arizona and necessitated evacuations and road closures with the facility smoldering for almost two weeks.

https://www.fox10phoenix.com/news/lithium-battery-storage-facility-fire-chandler

Both of those Arizona battery facilities were sited in Industrial Zones — not residential areas — and the surrounding industrial facilities were evacuated as a result of the toxic smoke during those fires.

Almost all solar facilities have some form of minimal battery backup to maintain the operation of the solar facility, such as to supply the motors that may turn the solar panels or to monitor the flow of power from the solar cells.  The size of such batteries is comparable to, say, the battery from an electric vehicle if even that big.

But not all solar installations, even those on an industrial scale, have battery storage systems, which are known as BESS (Battery Energy Storage Systems).  Indeed, AES’ own website says “…today almost half of our new projects include a storage component.”  Which means that more than half of their new projects do not include a battery component.

In the Environmental Impact Report AES submitted with their original application in January 2023, it mentions “an optional BESS” (page 2-1). So it is not required for a solar project to have a battery storage component at the same location. In their new CUP application AES submitted on August 31, 2024, they removed the word “optional” and now state, “The project is a 96-MW solar project with 48-MW/192 -MWh BESS.” (page 2-3 of the Environmental Impact Report).

For the Rancho Viejo Solar Project here, AES says the solar part will generate 96 Megawatts of electric power.  All of that power could go directly onto the grid. So, then the question becomes, why does AES want to construct a massive BESS that can store 141-200 Megawatts?

5 Myths about BESS:  https://www.bakerrisk.com/news/myths-battery-energy-storage-systems/#:~:text=Myth%20%235%3A%20Structures%20containing%20BESS,when%20battery%20cells%20become%20compromised

From our research and consultation with numerous electrical engineers, the reason AES wants such a large battery facility is that it will offer them the opportunity to not only store the energy from their solar panels, but to pull energy off the PNM grid when demand is low, and then sell it back when rates go up and demand is high. In public hearings, AES’ own experts have confirmed this is their intent.

Hence, the larger the battery facility, the more they can store and sell, and the more money they can make. Nor can AES confirm that the power they sell back will solely go to residents of New Mexico. So, just because this large battery facility is located here, with all the attendant risks of these battery installations, it doesn’t mean that our rates will be any lower or that we will in any way benefit from this facility.

In our direct meetings with both county and state officials, it was clear that AES had not informed them this was their intended business plan.  All those officials were under the impression that the “need” for these batteries was to just store the power from the solar panels, not to pull and push power on and off the PNM grid to maximize AES’ profits. This revelation raised a number of concerns.

 AES had not been fully honest or forthcoming with the county or state about their reasons for wanting this facility. If the real value to AES was not the solar generation but a massive battery facility, which presumably they could even expand over time, was this really a renewable energy project at all?  Or was it instead a battery project with solar generation tacked on to make it appear environmentally ‘positive’ to garner official and public support?  A technique known as “green washing”.

To prevent the County from releasing information to citizens, AES sued the County and obtained a Temporary Restraining Order forbidding the County from sharing any negative information.  AES did not want the public to know the percent of likelihood that a thermal runaway would occur, nor what toxic gasses would be released by the battery cells they intend to use.  AES did not want to reveal where they intended to site this facility. AES claimed the information, such as facility location, were "trade secrets."

If AES’ goals for this project were transparent, why would they need a court order to prevent the public from knowing what exactly they intended to build?

Did you know that AES has maintained that this project’s design is 10% and working towards 30% completed?  They continue to be refining their design as they develop the project, hence the numbers continue to change.

And, while we appreciate AES moving into renewable energies, we are seriously concerned by their history and lack of concern for the effect their projects have had on local communities. See “Lawsuit accuses Virginia power company of poisoning Dominican community with toxic coal ash” https://www.facingsouth.org

From 2000 to September, 2024, AES has been fined over 40 MILLION dollars for environmental, safety, energy market and employment-related offenses clearly indicating it is not the climate-friendly, “green” company they claim to be. See link below to the Violation Tracker website that provides information on all their many violations.

https://violationtracker.goodjobsfirst.org/parent/aes-corp   

You can search all of AES’ various companies’ violations and click on the fine amount to read more about each violation. It is quite a record that speaks volumes about how this company has operated over the last 24 years. 

Santa Fe County should take a hard look at AES’ clear history of very serious environmental violations which have polluted many communities and decide if this is a company we should trust and invite into our community to install a dangerous project?  We think the evidence is overwhelming that AES cannot be trusted. 

With today’s technology Battery Energy Storage Systems (BESS) come with risks that require considerable planning and preparation.

https://www.travelers.com/resources/business-industries/energy/lithium-ion-battery-energy-storage-emerging-risks-business

Well that is exactly what could happen. Joshua Mayer of AES at the 8/22/24 meeting they held with the public admitted only when we asked him that AES has discussed this with, and intends to apply to, Santa Fe County for an Industrial Revenue Bond to help AES finance the project. So in addition to the 30% tax credit they will receive from the federal government under the Inflation Reduction Act for building a battery storage facility, they want your hard-earned local tax dollars to help AES make even more profit from this facility that by far the majority of us do not want.  

In addition to all the other reasons you are not in favor of the Rancho Viejo Solar project, please let the County know loud and clear that you are not in favor of using local tax dollars to finance an out-of-state multi-billion dollar company.