Developer planning to build Harlingen’s fifth battery storage facility

HARLINGEN — A developer is planning to build what could become the city’s fifth energy battery storage plant along a 6.6-acre site near the Fair Park neighborhood, sparking concerns construction could damage an area street.

RavenVolt, a Georgia-based company, is requesting city commissioners grant a special use permit to build an $8.7 million, plant generating 9.9 to 20 megawatts at 1335 Memphis St. off Commerce Street near Fair Park.

Now, commissioners are requesting the company agree to repair Memphis Street in case of damage.

The company’s plant would become the fifth commissioners have approved in the last two years.

If developers follow through with their plans, the plants would be capable of charging more than 50,000 homes, part of an evolving energy storage industry aimed at backing up the electric grid.

“As Harlingen and the Rio Grande Valley grow, it’s important to have more electricity available, and battery storage facilities can really help out in the pinch,” Commissioner Michael Mezmar said Thursday in an interview.

The city’s battery storage plants are expected to shore up the local grid.

“It keeps the electricity local,” Mezmar said. “Battery storage companies buy electricity when its available and store it in batteries until its needed in the local grid.”

During a meeting, commissioners held off on granting RavenVolt a special use permit to build the plant, with Commissioner Daniel Lopez requesting the company sign off on a road maintenance agreement.

“You’re bringing in cranes, your bringing in heavy equipment. These batteries are heavy,” Mezmar told company representatives during the Dec. 18 meeting. “It will tear up a residential road. Would you be willing to repave it? If you would be willing to repave that road, I’d be happy. I’m sold on the project if you repave the road.”

The proposed plant would become the city’s first to stand next to a neighborhood.

“This one has a dense neighborhood right next to it, so it’s different than other projects,” Xavier Cervantes, the city’s planning director, told commissioners, adding a solid 8-foot-high wall would surround the plant site.

Amid discussion, Mayor Norma Sepulveda and commissioners expressed concern the proposed plant would stand near the Fair Park neighborhood, where the company plans to hook up to an AEP-Texas substation.

“We had a number of constituents calling with concerns,” Lopez told company representatives. “This is the one that’s closest to a neighborhood. It’s essentially in their backyard.”

In response, Cervantes said officials have fielded two phone calls from residents expressing concerns.

“One of them had concerns about a leak — what happens if there’s a leak,” he told commissioners. “The other one had concerns about taxes — what’s going to happen to their taxes with this project.”

During a presentation, representatives stood by the company’s track record.

“Globally, we’ve installed a lot of this product and we’ve had zero of what’s known as thermal runaway, or incidents of fire,” a representative only giving his name as Wesley told commissioners. “So we have a lot of confidence that it’s a safe product to install here.”

Company representatives said the plant posed “very little potential for leaking.”

“Certainly, we would not make this kind of investment if there was a leak that could ever go undetected or that equipment would allow for that as far as safety,” the representative said. “There’s actually very little potential for leaking. There is a liquid coolant. It’s not toxic. It wouldn’t cause EPA concern.”

The company plans to monitor the unmanned plant, he said.

“Certainly, with an investment of this type, we’ll have security closed-circuit TV to monitor the site, and certainly everything else has many sensors and alarms to alert us of anything that is a concern,” he said.

In the last two years, commissioners have approved four plants storing crystallized lithium-ion batteries, including a 100-megawatt battery storage plant on farm land off Loop 499 and two 10-megawatt plants off West Lincoln Avenue.

Then in October, commissioners granted a special use permit to a company planning a 9.9-megawatt plant on two acres, storing lithium-ion battery units, each 8-feet by 20-feet long, on the north side of East Harrison Avenue off Loop 499.

Late last year, the first of the 10-megawatt plants went into operation off Lincoln Avenue, Cervantes said.

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