South Orange County Community College District trustees have asked staffers to see how they can reject a $750,000 grant from Engie North America, which wants to build a 250-megawatt battery storage site on 13 acres in northern San Juan Capistrano, near Camino Capistrano and the 5 Freeway.
The SOCCCD board voted in April to accept the grant, and the agreement with Compass Energy Storage, LLC., a subsidiary of Engie, was finalized on May 2. But community members and lawmakers from nearby cities who oppose the storage site have lobbied the college board to reconsider the offer.
“Mistakes have been made that now need to get fixed,” Trustee Lisa Bartlett said during Monday’s meeting, where the board voted 7-0 to direct staff to draft findings justifying the termination of the grant agreement. “We agree battery storage is needed to service future energy needs, but not in the proposed location in San Juan Capistrano, which is very close to residents and a major freeway. Community input is very important, and the time for action is now.”
The trustees are expected to consider the termination at their next meeting. The board also directed its staff to find alternative ways to make up the lost $750,000 to help support the college district’s students.
Officials from Engie emphasized that the grant agreement would not require the college board to support or oppose the project.
The grant would have paid the district $150,000 for five years and supported Saddleback College’s work-based learning programs, which, according to the agreement between the board and Compass, would include occupational skills training and career-aligned work experiences designed to assist students in transferring to four-year universities or entering the workforce.
The money would have only been paid to the district if the California Energy Commission approved the proposed project.
“Should they make that decision (that the project can go forward), we want to comply and do the right thing by making donations to local organizations such as the college,” said Renee Robin, director for permitting and planning for Engie. “There is battery storage all over California and it needs to be done in a proper and safe way.
“Orange County had a moratorium on new battery storage projects until they had time to sit down and write a really detailed ordinance, which just passed the Planning Commission and is about to go to the Board of Supervisors,” she said. “Everything about that ordinance, our project is in compliance with and was before it was written.”
But city officials from San Juan Capistrano and Laguna Niguel, two cities that adamantly oppose the storage site, argue the agreement to accept the grant was not transparent and the college board, by participating, would be allowing Engie to “satisfy its community benefit requirement,” as it goes through the review process from the California Energy Commission.
By accepting the grant money, the board would be “supporting a company that has greatly misled the CEC, the city and the South Orange County community,” San Juan Capistrano City Manager Ben Siegel wrote in a letter to the college board.
“The project is widely opposed by the community that SOCCCD serves, and SOCCCD would be supporting and complicit in Compass’s lack of transparency,” he said.
The project proposes a 250-megawatt battery energy storage system, or BESS, that could collect excess energy from the power grid, store it, and then discharge it back to the grid during periods of peak demand. There are more than 100 facilities of this kind in Southern California, including a few in Orange County.
Compass filed its application more than a year ago, and after review, the state commission deemed it complete in late April, kicking off a 270-day certification process. The project is one of three in the state being considered under a 2022 law that broadened the energy commission’s authority to facilitate renewable energy projects in support of California’s goal of achieving 100% clean energy by 2045.
Concerned residents and lawmakers have been raising safety concerns about the Engie project, including fire hazards and environmental impacts, and are trying to convince the state commission it should not be permitted in its current proposed location in the San Juan Capistrano hills, near homes. The public outreach efforts follow the formation of a resident group, BLESSIN, short for Ban Lithium Energy Storage Systems in Neighborhoods, last year by Laguna Niguel realtor and resident Kathleen Pryor.
Pryor and other BLESSIN supporters dressed in their signature red T-shirts for the college board’s meeting.
“We are encouraged that the Board of Trustees listened to us, understood the concerns, the hazards in this location and the danger to our homes, schools, businesses, churches and senior facilities,” Pryor said. “We plan to attend the trustees’ meeting on Oct. 27 to hear the results of their effort to find a way to terminate this agreement.”
“The offer from Engie was contingent upon CEC approval for the project and that all lawsuits filed are settled,” she added. “It was not a gift. There were several conditions.”
Ryan Waterman, an attorney for Engie, reminded the trustees again this week that the grant agreement does not require support for the project.
“All it requires you to do is to put it to use for the workplace program,” he said. “Your education code handbook advises that the actions taken by the college should be done with the student’s best interest. The cities’ request ignores student benefits and focuses on their needs, which is not your concern. Your concern is student welfare.”