05/08/2026
This guest column on battery energy storage safety was published by the Daily Freeman on May 8, 2026. It provides insights into how safety and health protections worked as designed in California.
California Battery Incidents Demonstrate
Effective Safety Systems Under Real-World Conditions
By Mark Turner, Terra-Gen Vice President and Head of Energy Storage Development
Recent reporting on Terra-Gen incidents at our California facility has raised understandable questions and we want to ensure the public has the full picture. The residents of Ulster, Hurley and Kingston deserve clear, factual answers. These incidents reinforce the information we’ve shared about how modern battery systems perform safely under real-world conditions.
The question worth asking is not whether energy infrastructure can ever experience an incident. No technology can guarantee that — not natural gas pipelines, not electrical substations, not the transformers already operating throughout your community. The right question is: When something goes wrong, do the safety systems work?
At our California facilities, the answer is yes.
Labeling these events as “mismanagement” overlooks what actually occurred. Modern battery systems are designed to detect issues early, isolate them and prevent impacts from spreading beyond a single enclosure. In each of the 2024 battery-related incidents referenced in the Daily Freeman article on May 2, conditions were detected early, impacts were confined to a single enclosure, and no hazardous conditions resulted. Impacts were limited to equipment inside the affected unit.
It is also important to understand that these events were linked to a specific equipment issue associated with a single manufacturer’s configuration. That equipment has been identified, is no longer being deployed, and has been subject to a replacement and inspection program. The configuration proposed for the Town of Ulster does not include this technology.
Some have suggested that the lack of impacts from the California incidents are a function of remote siting. They are not.
Containment was achieved through system design — enclosure-level isolation, spacing, detection and emergency response protocols — not geography. Likewise, the project proposed in the Town of Ulster will be designed with setbacks and buffers so that, consistent with code, any incident remains confined within the project boundary, with no identified off-site impacts or hazardous conditions.
Fire department involvement in these events was precautionary. Crews were monitoring controlled conditions, not responding to a spreading emergency. In each case, once conditions were confirmed stable, the facility was returned to Terra-Gen operations within hours. That distinction matters when evaluating what these incidents actually demonstrate.
The article emphasizes dollar figures, which understandably draw attention. But those figures represent equipment losses contained within sealed enclosures on our property. No homes were damaged. No businesses were affected. No costs were borne by the public. The enclosures are designed to absorb the impact. That is not a failure of the system — it is the system working as intended.
What will be built in the Town of Ulster will also be subject to New York State’s fire code, one of the most rigorous regulatory frameworks for battery energy storage systems in the country. That code establishes stringent requirements for detection, spacing, emergency response planning and system configuration.
Some members of the community suggest that our operational history should be considered, and we agree. A full and fair reading of that record shows a system that performed as designed: detecting issues early, containing them within the project boundary, and protecting the surrounding community.
That is the standard we are committed to delivering in the Town of Ulster.
Mark Turner is Terra-Gen’s Vice President and Head of Energy Storage Development. Learn more about the Town of Ulster BESS and safety and health protocols at UlsterCleanEnergy.com.
