This Op-Ed by Laurie Belsito Ran in MassLive on February 19, 2026.

Published Op-Ed can be viewed here: https://www.masslive.com/opinion/2026/02/battery-energy-storage-systems-coming-to-a-town-near-you-laurie-belsito.html

View our Video Version Here: https://youtu.be/DSYpfI_XzEg

This year marks a notable change coming to cities and towns around the state. The 2024 Climate Act, passed by the state Legislature and signed into law by the governor in November 2024, made significant policy changes related to streamlining siting and permitting of “clean” energy infrastructure on the local and state level, set to take effect this year.

The law specifically accelerates the deployment of Battery Energy Storage Systems (BESS), requiring 5,000 megawatts by 2030, and the Department of Energy Resources (DOER) has issued guidelines for uniform health, safety and siting standards.

Due to this law, the people of Massachusetts face a flood of potentially dangerous giant batteries dotting our state without proper safety regulations.

The proposed safety guidance appears woefully inadequate and, in some cases, dangerously wrong.

The Healey administration has already selected five huge battery projects for development, including at least one in the Boston area. Many other smaller but still large projects are proposed, mostly in central and western areas of the state which tend to be more rural, and where protective services are scarce. Some projects will have over a hundred giant batteries, each the size of a tractor-trailer container.

These big boxes of toxic chemicals are known to be subject to spontaneous combustion or even explosion, so it is imperative that serious consideration is taken for proper regulation and safety. There has been recent pushback of BESS in states, like Texas, which have a longer history of dealing with these massive projects, citing fire risks and threats to agricultural land. In some cases, cities have rejected proposals due to safety concerns, including potential “thermal runaway” fires.

The DOER has proposed draft battery safety guidance for our state, called Baseline Standards. But the standards for “Energy Storage Facilities” (that is giant batteries) suffers from several major deficiencies.

First and foremost, for fire safety the Baseline Standards say that “Energy Storage Systems shall be designed, constructed, and operated in accordance with National Fire Protection Association (NFPA) 855: Standard for the Installation of Energy Storage Systems.”

This is the basic fire safety rule. The problem is that the NFPA Standard 855 is limited to small batteries with an energy storage capacity of 50 kilowatt-hours (kWh) or less. Such a battery might be used for emergency blackout protection in an office building. However, each of the proposed Massachusetts batteries is likely to have a capacity of 4,000 kWh (equal to 4 MWh) or more.

Giant batteries 80 times larger than those which Standard 855 addresses are not adequately covered by that standard. Unfortunately, as of yet there are no national standards for batteries of this scale.

In some aspects, applying 855 could be catastrophically wrong. For example, 855 says that when there are multiple batteries, they should be three feet apart so if one burns it will not ignite its neighbors. That tiny spacing would provide no protection in the case of the giant batteries being proposed in Massachusetts. Ten feet has been recommended by an insurance company, but DOER has to set its own uniform standard.

The greatest risk with these huge batteries is that a single battery burning has the potential to set the entire complex on fire. If NFPA 855 spacing is used the possibility of catastrophe is undeniable. We recently saw just such a catastrophe at Moss Landing, California.

Bearing this in mind, the DOER Baseline Standards are not merely wrong, they are potentially catastrophically wrong. The mistaken use of NFPA Standard 855 needs to be replaced with properly formulated Massachusetts standards that correctly address giant battery energy storage facilities that are now mandated by law.

It’s also noteworthy that the need to properly prepare for spontaneous battery fires is not addressed. In particular, evacuation is merely mentioned in passing. There should be a clear requirement for a carefully worked out plan for evacuation and sheltering in place in case of a major multi-battery fire does occur.

Moreover, this emergency action plan should be coordinated with those people who are likely to have to evacuate and shelter. People need to already know what to do if disaster hits.

In urban areas the number of people potentially required to shelter or evacuate could be quite large. The already awarded Everett project is an example of an urban setting where this should be seriously considered.

In the same vein, the location of giant battery energy storage facilities in rural areas is especially problematic. Such areas are likely to be served by small, volunteer fire departments that have neither the training nor the equipment to fight a giant battery fire. In the case of a major multi-battery fire several such departments are likely to be required to contain the inferno and water supply becomes a real concern. The emergency plan should address this issue and the energy storage project should pay for the required training and equipment.

There are other deficiencies along the same lines, preparing for a possible disaster like those that have already occurred.

No new projects should be approved until these serious deficiencies in the proposed DOER Baseline Standards are properly addressed and corrected. After all, this administration prides itself on making Massachusetts a leader on the alternative energy front. Perhaps we should be a leader in safety when that alternative energy fails.

Laurie Belsito is the policy director at the Fiscal Alliance Foundation in Boston.