Fears of massive battery fires spark local opposition to energy storage projects

More and more, big arrays of lithium-ion batteries are being hooked up to electrical grids around the U.S. to store power that can be discharged in times of high demand.

But as more energy storage is added, residents in some places are pushing back due to fears that the systems will go up in flames, as a massive facility in California did earlier this year.

Proponents maintain that state-of-the-art battery energy storage systems are safe, but more localities are enacting moratoriums.

“We’re not guinea pigs for anybody ... we are not going to experiment, we’re not going to take risk,” said Michael McGinty, the mayor of Island Park, New York, which passed a moratorium in July after a storage system was proposed near the village line.

At least a few dozen localities around the United States have moved to temporarily block development of big battery systems in recent years.

Long Island, where the power grid could get a boost in the next few years as offshore wind farms come online, has been a hotbed of activism, even drawing attention recently from the Trump administration. Opponents there got a boost in August when Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Lee Zeldin visited New York to complain that the state was rushing approvals of sites in order to meet “delusional” green power goals — a claim state officials deny.

Battery energy storage systems that suck up cheap power during periods of low demand, then discharge it at a profit during periods of high demand, are considered critical with the rise of intermittent energy sources such as wind and solar.

Known by the acronym BESS, the systems can make grids more reliable and have been credited with reducing blackouts. A large battery system might consist of rows of shipping containers in a fenced lot, with the containers holding hundreds of thousands of cells.

China and the United States lead the world in rapidly adding battery storage energy systems. However, Saudi Arabia, South Africa, Australia, Netherlands, Chile, Canada and the U.K. have commissioned or started construction on large projects since 2024, too, according to research from BloombergNEF.

In the U.S., California and Texas have been leaders in battery storage. But other states are moving quickly, often with privately developed systems. While the Trump administration has been unsupportive or even hostile to renewable energy, key tax credits for energy storage projects were maintained in the recently approved federal budget for qualified projects that begin construction in the next eight years.

Developers added 4,908 megawatts of battery storage capacity in the second quarter of 2025, with Arizona, California and Texas accounting for about three-quarters of that new capacity, according to a report from American Clean Power Association, an industry group. That’s enough to power nearly 1.7 million households.

New York has an ambitious goal to add 6,000 megawatts of energy storage by 2030, half of it large-scale systems.

Opposition to the storage systems usually focuses on the possibility of thermal runaway, a chain reaction of uncontrolled heating that can lead to fire or an explosion. Opponents point to past fires and ask: What if that happens in my neighborhood?

A battery storage system in Moss Landing, California caught fire in January, sending plumes of toxic smoke into the atmosphere and forcing the evacuation of about 1,500 people..

Experts in the field say battery systems have become safer over the years. Ofodike Ezekoye, a combustion expert and professor of mechanical engineering at The University of Texas at Austin, notes that failures are relatively infrequent, but also that no engineered system is 100% foolproof.

“This is a relatively immature technology that is maturing quickly, so I think that there are a lot of really thoughtful researchers and other stakeholders who are trying to improve the overall safety of these systems,” Ezekoye said.

Battery storage proponents say a facility like Moss Landing, where batteries were stored indoors, would not be allowed in New York, which has adopted fire codes that require modular enclosure design with required minimum spacing to keep fires from spreading.

People who live near proposed sites are not always assured.

In Washington state, the city of Maple Valley approved a six-month moratorium in July as a way “to protect us until we know more,” said city manager Laura Philpot.

Voters in Halstead, Kansas, which has a moratorium, will be asked this Election Day whether they want to prohibit larger battery storage systems inside the city limits, according to Mayor Dennis Travis. He hopes the city can one day host a safely designed storage system, and said local opponents wrongly fixate on the California fire.

The number of localities passing moratoriums began rising in 2023 and 2024, mirroring trends in battery storage deployment, with a notable cluster in New York, according to a presentation last year by the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory.

Winnie Sokolowski is among area residents against a proposed 250-megawatt lithium-ion storage system in the Town of Ulster, New York, contending it is too close to schools and homes.

“They’re banking on nothing happening, but I don’t think you can place it where they’re proposing and assume nothing’s going to happen,” Sokolowski said. “It’s just too risky if it does.”

The developer, Terra-Gen, said the design will keep a fire from spreading and that the system “poses no credible, scientific-based threat to neighbors, the public or the environment.”

New York State Energy Research and Development Authority President Doreen Harris said she's confident the state has the right safety rules in place, and that scaling up the use of battery storage systems will “strengthen and modernize our grid.”

She noted there also were local concerns in the early stages of siting solar farms, which have since proven their benefits.

Associated Press writer Jennifer McDermott in Providence, Rhode Island, contributed to this report.

A large lithium battery energy storage system operated by Key Capture Energy that can power 15,000 homes for two hours during outages or high demand is shown in Blasdell, N.Y., Tuesday, Sept. 9, 2025. (AP Photo/Ted Shaffrey)

A large lithium battery energy storage system, center lower left, operated by Key Capture Energy is shown in Blasdell, N.Y., Monday, Sept. 8, 2025. (AP Photo/Ted Shaffrey)

Chris Linsmayer, Key Capture Energy Public Affairs Manager, talks about the company's large lithium battery energy storage system, Tuesday, Sept. 9, 2025 in Blasdell, N.Y., which can power 15,000 homes for two hours during outages or high demand. (AP Photo/Ted Shaffrey)

A large lithium battery energy storage system operated by Key Capture Energy that can power 15,000 homes for two hours during outages or high demand is shown in Blasdell, N.Y., Tuesday, Sept. 9, 2025. (AP Photo/Ted Shaffrey)

A large lithium battery energy storage system operated by Key Capture Energy that can power 15,000 homes for two hours during outages or high demand sits surrounded by a fence in Blasdell, N.Y., Tuesday, Sept. 9, 2025. (AP Photo/Ted Shaffrey)

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) — Iran on Tuesday denounced the most recent U.S. strikes as a sign of “bad faith and unreliability” as negotiations pressed on toward a possible deal to end the war, and the Islamic Republic began restoring internet access after one of the longest nationwide shutdowns ever.

The U.S. military characterized Monday's strikes in southern Iran as defensive, saying targets included missile launch sites and minelaying boats, and said the U.S. acted with “restraint" in light of the weekslong ceasefire.

Iran's foreign ministry called the strikes a ceasefire violation and warned that Washington would bear responsibility for “all consequences,” without elaborating.

“The Islamic Republic of Iran will leave no act of aggression unanswered,” it added in a statement.

Iran’s Revolutionary Guard said Tuesday that it shot down at least one drone and deterred another drone and a fighter jet that entered its airspace, according to Iran’s official Mizan news agency. It didn't specify when the incidents occurred.

Iran's supreme leader, Mojtaba Khamenei, used a statement about Islam's annual Hajj pilgrimage to address his country's confrontation with the U.S. and Israel, declaring that other Mideast nations “will no longer serve as a shield” for U.S. military bases. Iran has previously complained about U.S. military facilities in the region and targeted them.

It was not immediately clear what the developments would mean for negotiations.

Iranian state TV reported Tuesday that Iranian Parliament Speaker Mohammad Bagher Qalibaf and Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi left Qatar, where talks had been taking place. The report did not elaborate or point to any next steps. In Washington, U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio projected that talks on extending the ceasefire and reopening the crucial Strait of Hormuz will “take a few days."

Meanwhile, Iranian authorities eased a monthslong internet shutdown that they cast as a wartime necessity, but that has cost the country's economy an estimated $30 million to $40 million a day. Internet users reported that access was gradually being restored, at least in some places. State media reported that fixed broadband service was partially restored. Mobile internet wasn't yet working.

Iran has long enforced filters and policed content on platforms such as YouTube and Instagram. But before the war, Iranians could bypass restrictions with cheap virtual private networks, known as VPNs, and other easy workarounds.

Authorities cut off internet access in January during massive anti-government demonstrations and later began to relax those restrictions before imposing a complete internet blackout after the U.S. and Israel attacked on Feb. 28.

The internet outage made it difficult for Iranians outside the country to maintain contact with loved ones, and the lack of connectivity devastated the country’s relatively vibrant online businesses, putting further pressure on an already battered economy.

In other developments, Iran hanged a man it convicted of spying for Israel, the latest of more than two dozen allegedly espionage- and security-related executions since the war intensified a crackdown on dissent.

The Iranian judiciary’s news outlet, Mizanonline, identified the man as Gholamreza Khani Shakarab, calling him “a ringleader” for operations for Israel’s intelligence agency, the Mossad, and accusing him of recruiting members inside and outside Iran to work against the nation’s security. He was involved in sports and traveled to neighboring countries, according to the news agency.

Activists and rights groups say Iran routinely holds closed-door trials in which defendants are unable to challenge accusations and often are forced to confess.

The official judiciary agency said the country’s Supreme Court had upheld Shakarab's death sentence.

The U.S. strikes were the latest flare-up in the fragile ceasefire that began April 7 and has largely held.

Negotiations center in part on the Strait of Hormuz, the crucial waterway off southern Iran through which a fifth of the world's crude oil and natural gas passed before the war began. Once the fighting started, Tehran retaliated by effectively closing the strait, stranding hundreds of ships, shocking the global economy, disrupting energy markets and squeezing fertilizer supplies worldwide.

The full effect of the fertilizer crunch might not become clear until harvests that are months away. U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization Director-General Qu Dongyu, warned Tuesday at an event in Rome that “the decisions we make now will determine whether this remains a manageable shock or evolves into a deeper global food security crisis in 2026 and 2027 and beyond."

The strait has become a powerful lever for Tehran in talks, joining the long-running issue of Iran's nuclear program and its highly enriched uranium. Iran wants the U.S. to lift its military blockade of Iranian ports that began on April 17.

In the nearby Gulf of Oman, an explosion was reported Tuesday aboard a tanker, according to the U.K. Maritime Trade Operations Center. No one was injured, and there was no immediate information on the cause.

A woman crosses a street in front of a painting of the late Iranian revolutionary founder Ayatollah Khomeini and paramilitary Basij forces in downtown Tehran, Iran, Sunday, May 24, 2026. (AP Photo/Vahid Salemi)

Government supporters hold Iranian flags and pictures of Iran's Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Mojtaba Khamenei, during a ceremony honoring the armed forces and those killed in the war with Israel and the U.S. at the Imam Khomeini Grand Mosque in Tehran, Iran, Sunday, May 24, 2026. (AP Photo/Vahid Salemi)

President Donald Trump speaks during the 158th National Memorial Day Observance coinciding with the nation's 250th anniversary, at the Memorial Amphitheater in Arlington National Cemetery, Monday, May 25, 2026, in Arlington, Va. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon)