By james art 
As a result of a number of fires in the storage facilities in the state, the California Committee on Utilities will soon vote to create new standards for their maintenance and operation.
If accepted, the proposal also increases the supervision of an emergency reaction in energy storage areas that use batteries.
The message comes shortly after a dramatic fire broke out on January 16th at a 750-mega battery plant in the Northern California Community in the Moss landing, which led to the evacuation of 1,200 inhabitants. The blaze burned two days and closed a section of highway 1 for three days.
The emergency crews and the owner of the plant, based in Texas Vistra Energy, look at what caused battery ignition. Last week, governor Gavin Newo called for an investigation.
On March 13, a vote is planned to strengthen safety and supervision on battery facilities known as CPUC on March 13.
If approved by the majority of the commissioners, the proposal will update an already existing CPUC order, which applies the standards for electrical generating equipment to include the energy systems of the battery, plus the inclusion of new battery instructions through legislation recently adopted in Sacramento.
Among other things, the proposal also explicitly makes CPUC requires battery owners to develop emergency reacting and emergency plans in the event of fires or other incidents.
Battery storage facilities are considered a vital piece of California’s purpose to obtain 100% of its electricity from sources without carbon until 2045 or earlier.
Usually arranged in rows in the enclosures, batteries accept electricity, which is generated during the daily hours of solar energy, stores this energy and sends it to the electrical network in the evening.
Battery electricity – which do not emit greenhouse gases – can compensate for the power that would otherwise be delivered from the production of fossil fuels as a natural gas, while increasing the reliability of the network during these hours.
Battery installations have been growing rapidly in recent years in California. The state only deployed 500 megawatt battery power in 2019, but last year its number jumped up to 13,300 megawatts.
For perspective, the only nuclear power plant in California, Diablo Canyon, generates 2240 megawatts.
By 2045, California had designed about 52,000 megawatts from storage of the battery.
But a series of fires across the country raised questions about batteries and made some residents speak to the construction of new projects in their neighborhoods and communities.
Battery fires can be difficult to expose. Lithium in most battery systems can experience “thermal escape” – a condition in which batteries overheat, ignite and distribute from one battery to another.
In the area of San Diego, the latest fire took place on September 5 in Escondido in the 30-mega, 120-megawatt facility of San Diego and Electric. This led to the temporary evacuation of about 500 close enterprises. Escondido crews did not find abnormal indications showing toxic vapors and air quality monitoring did not show any health risks.
Last May, fire broke out at Otay Mesa in the 250-megawat Gateway energy storage facility, operated by LS Power and its subsidiary, Rev Renewbles. Fire officials said the batteries continue to ignite again and had passed nearly 17 days before the last fire and air monitoring crews left the facility.
The MOSS landing facility, located in Monterey County, is charged as the largest of its kind in the world. The fire, which broke out this month, is the third that happened at the 2021 Vistra site.
Officials in the CPUC Safety and Execution Department visited the Vistra battery on January 22nd and conducted a fire investigation.
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