Councillor Kelly Says BESS Sites Best Suited for Industrial Areas

At the July 4th meeting of the Agricultural and Rural Affairs Committee, Clarke Kelly told his fellow rural ward councillors of his conversation with IESO earlier this year. 

"Along with Councillor Darouze, I took the time for a fairly lengthy visit to the Independent Electricity System Operator (IESO) booth to talk about our recent experience with their latest round of procurement for Battery Energy Storage projects. We advocated for a much more clear and transparent procurement process and asked that they have experts help with the public consultation aspect of these projects which is sorely lacking. The process and the many players involved is very confusing for people and the public will never accept the outcome of a process that is not clear and where applicants do the bare minimum to engage the local community. We talked about standards and expectations around who pays for fire suppression and the resources it takes when one of these systems catches fire. Location of these systems was also a topic of conversation, with our argument essentially being that we need to find a way for them to be put in areas that are already industrial. We also raised concerns about 

property values, well water contamination, and light and noise pollution from these 

systems."