Carrie Hathaway is a senior financial advisor at Howard Center and owns a home in Vergennes.
As the nearest, most affected property owner to Lightshift’s proposed battery energy storage system in Vergennes, I would like to point out that the recent article in VTDigger about the project being put on hold left out some important information.
The article says that “while the 4.99-megawatt, five-shipping-container-sized facility could reduce electric bills for Vergennes residents and Vermonters, improve delivery to homes and businesses, hasten integration of renewable energy on the grid and contribute significantly to the city’s grand list, it’s a project that’s generated frustration, anger and fear.”
It says “could,” not “would.” This is key, since the project proposal is not utility-owned, its costs will likely never be disclosed, and the true potential for savings may never be realized by Green Mountain Power customers. Lightshift will retain ownership of the project and expects to sign a contract with GMP for the resale of stored energy when GMP needs to deploy it. A question was asked at the informational session about what the savings would be after the rent was paid to Lightshift. This was not answered. The benefit is purely speculative.
Comparing the likelihood of a battery system incident to the rarity of airplane crashes is not reassuring. As the wife of a recreational pilot who watches TV shows like “Why Planes Crash” and “Air Disasters,” I can tell you that planes actually crash quite frequently. Additionally, while Lightshift’s Paul Rogers has a quarter-century of experience as a New York City firefighter, Lightshift’s first operational facility opened in 2022, and the company only has seven active sites operational. Rogers shared details of a fire at one site in Warwick, New York.
As to Vergennes Fire Chief David DiBiase’s assertions that the Vergennes Fire Department knows it can safely address any issues that arise, I requested that the meeting between Lightshift and the VFD be made public to residents so they could hear the recommendations. This was denied. Rogers confirmed at the public meeting that he does not agree with the National Fire Protection Association standard for battery energy storage systems, NFPA 855. He and Lightshift’s co-founder, Michael Herbert, did not confirm that they would provide the equipment recommended in this standard to our local volunteer fire department. This lack of transparency and cooperation by Lightshift makes any real evaluation of the claims very difficult and raises questions about accountability.
The article gave disproportionate attention to Herbert without providing information about the battery facilities that have had substantial negative impacts. There are moratoriums and even bans in at least 50 towns, cities and counties. There are two ongoing lawsuits — one by a town over groundwater contamination from a fire, and another in which a town asserts that an investor has no authority to file under a public utility commission since they are not a utility.
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Herbert said, “We’re always open to talking to landowners about sites for our projects, we’ve done that a lot in Vergennes.” I would be interested in knowing with whom they spoke. My communication with them has been brief. I reached out to notify them that we did not receive the initial 45-day notice to discuss my concerns around the fact that the notice cited their intention not to touch existing “buffering” — vegetation that happens to be on my property. My family is planning to remove it as part of our approved subdivision to site five new homes. These homes would be directly adjacent to Lightshift’s proposed location. I expressed this concern to Lightshift, but they did not follow up, nor did they recommend any plan changes.
It seems unlikely to me that the co-founder of Lightshift would not know what level of profit is earned on a battery storage system. Lightshift is funded by Greenbacker Capital Management, a privately held venture capital-backed investment services company.
Moreover, the financial returns required by a non-utility provider like Lightshift are often higher than those of a public utility like GMP. It seems absurd to me that any company would undertake a project such as this without knowing whether it would be able to cover costs. All money questions were deflected with an “I don’t know.” Honestly? If this is truly the case, I would question the reliability of the organization.
While these battery facilities may well be instrumental in helping stabilize the grid, they must be appropriately sited. It is also important that the planning efforts are undertaken in an open, trustworthy and transparent manner. It is my sincere hope that Lightshift is actively working on the intention to find an alternate location. One where, if an incident occurs, those flames and toxins can be mitigated so they don’t cause harm to residents, neighbors, groundwater, air quality or homes.
Battery energy storage systems should be thoughtfully sited with full cooperation of the local utility and ideally undertaken by an entity with good relationships with the community. Unfortunately, Lightshift has failed to take on this role and left us with many unanswered questions and concerns.
