Good for us!
By Rob Smith / ecoRI News staff
While there is currently no developer proposing a data
center or battery storage project for Charlestown, the Town Council was spurred
to both based on growing controversy in Quonset and Smithfield.
And while the town is likely a poor candidate for data
center projects — like much of southern Rhode Island because residents rely on
private wells — council members were aware enough to say never say never.
“Data centers gobble up the land,” council member Bonnie Van
Slyke, the prime sponsor of the ordinance, said at the Aug. 11 Town Council
meeting. “They use a lot of electricity, they need a lot of water to cool the
systems. They’re something we should be looking at very carefully if we want to
allow them going forward.”
The ordinance was unanimously backed by the Planning
Commission last month.
Data centers, among other new development, have been a hot
topic in even provincial Rhode Island this year. These supersized developments
most commonly look like windowless big-box stores, but instead of merchandise,
they are filled with vast arrays of computer banks running at all hours of the
day and night.
Data centers seemingly sprung up overnight following the
pandemic, with the rise of artificial intelligence programs that require
increasingly more and more computer power to function.
In March, Rhode Island-based renewable energy developer Revity Energy LLC expressed interest in building a business park with a data center as an anchor tenant on the site of Hanton City, an undeveloped parcel of land in Smithfield that is home to some Colonial-era ruins.
The project was projected to generate $59 million in
revenue over 30 years for the town of Smithfield, but in early May, following
public outcry, the town’s Planning Board and Town Council voted to ban such
developments.
Battery storage is almost as nascent a trend in Rhode Island
as data centers. The only current development is a 3-megawatt system
commissioned by Clear River Water and Electric — formerly known as the Pascoag
Utility District — tucked away in a small industrial park in the Burrillville
village.
To date, there is only one proposal for utility-scale
battery storage. Green Development LLC, a Cranston-based energy developer,
proposed building a 208-MW battery storage facility on Callahan Road in
North Kingstown, in the Quonset Business Park, a state-owned and operated
commercial district.
The proposal has become a flashpoint in North Kingstown,
with many residents expressing outrage at the Quonset Development Corporation,
the quasi-public state agency that operates the business park, and the kind of
projects it’s siting in North Kingstown with little publicity or town
involvement.
Safety concerns with battery storage center around the
lithium-ion batteries — which are also used in smartphone batteries and other
consumer electronics — used in their design. Battery energy storage systems are
designed to draw power from the electrical grid during off-peak times, like in
the middle of the night, and discharge it back onto the grid during peak times
to help reduce strain on electrical infrastructure and provide an additional
source of electrical power.
But lithium-ion batteries also have a reputation in the
public eye for igniting and catching on fire, turning into runaway fires. But
the safety risk remains low. While overall battery storage capacity has
increased in the past three years, on average less than five systems actually
catch on fire in the United States.
Energy storage systems are on the rise nationwide. Since
2023, thanks mainly to the Biden-era Inflation Reduction Act, battery capacity
has grown by 70%, according to reporting from the climate news outlet Heat Map.
Charlestown Town Council president Deborah Carney told ecoRI News she introduced the battery storage ban
ordinance in May, based on safety concerns presented to her by a constituent.
Charlestown’s ordinance is the first blanket ban on battery
storage systems, although council members were split on whether the exemptions
for consumer energy storage systems were truly exempt under the language of the
ordinance.
