The dispute over a proposed 250-megawatt battery storage facility at the former John A. Coleman Catholic High School in the Town of Ulster has reached the state level, drawing a split among Democrats. State Sen. Michelle Hinchey and Assemblymember Sarahana Shrestha this week sent a letter supporting the project and downplaying safety concerns, while Hurley officials reiterated their opposition.
“It’s increasingly common for the fossil fuel industry to use isolated, unrelated incidents to evoke people’s worst fears about energy storage projects,” Shrestha said in the letter. “Our office has received a lot of questions in the past several months about [the proposal], specifically whether it poses the kind of safety risks people should be worried about—and we’ve done our due diligence to provide the short answer, which is no.”
Hinchey and Shrestha credited the state’s “advanced fire codes and standards,” noting that less than 1% of facilities nationwide have experienced major issues. They also emphasized the urgency of expanding renewable energy infrastructure, writing that New York is “late to the game when it comes to renewable energy.”
At the center of the project is San Diego-based Tera-Gen, which plans to build the lithium-ion storage facility on 12 of 15 acres at 430 Hurley Ave. Last week, Hurley officials sent a letter “adamantly” opposing the plan, citing what Supervisor Michael Boms called “unsettled science” and fire dangers to nearby residential areas in Hurley and Kingston.
“I appreciate Sarahana and Michelle, and we can agree to disagree,” Boms said in an interview. “But I am not a fossil fuel man. I don’t subscribe to their propaganda.”
Boms, who is also a biology professor at SUNY Ulster, said the Town of Ulster “stood to reap all the benefits,” but Hurley and Kingston would shoulder the risks. He also questioned whether the project should qualify as renewable energy.
“Taking energy off the grid and storing it and selling it back to the community during peak usage hours. How is that renewable or green energy?” he said. “This will not solve our energy needs. It’s foolish to say that it will.”
Instead, Boms argued the state should support solar or wind projects.
Shrestha told The Overlook she was sympathetic to local concerns but attributed much of the opposition to industry influence.
“At the town level, I find that things don’t always fall along party lines,” she said. “But the dangers are kept alive by the [fossil fuel] industry. People don’t know that they are being influenced by it.”
She acknowledged that the project’s location—on a narrow strip of land bordering residential areas—has made debate more volatile. Still, she said she believes the project is safe and vital.
“The Hudson Valley stands to play a leading role that can show how energy storage can be done correctly,” Shrestha said.
Jim Rich is a reporter for The Overlook. You can reach him at jim@theoverlooknews.com.