Two months after Santa Fe County finalized a conditional-use permit for the AES Corporation for a proposed massive solar energy project, detractors have made it clear the fight is not over.
Clean Energy Coalition for Santa Fe County filed a notice of appeal in Santa Fe County District Court on Nov. 20, extending what’s already been a three-year fight over the installation of a utility-sized solar installation on private property south of the city.
The move follows at least three hearings, a trip through the Planning Commission and a subsequent appeal before the Board of County Commissioners. When the dust settled, the permit was granted to AES, a global energy corporation based in Arlington, Virginia. All it needs now to start construction by 2027 is an agreement with the New Mexico Public Regulation Commission. Those who’ve fought this proposal from the beginning have laid down the gauntlet.
“We don't believe the county followed the facts, the law, and we also believe our due process rights were violated because we weren't given the right to cross-examine sufficiently,” CEC chairman Lee Zlotoff tells SFR. “But the essence is, even the commissioners who passed this thing, acknowledge that there's a risk. Now, according to their own laws and codes, if there's a potential risk of fire or panic, they cannot approve it. They approved it anyway. They approved it, though, with something like, I don't know, 28 or 33 conditions. Our question is, who's gonna follow up on those conditions? The county staff is not capable of doing that. They don't have the expertise. The county commissioners don't have the expertise. So, in essence, they're going, ‘Well, here are the conditions, AES, we're just going to trust you to do that, okay?’ So in a sense, they're letting the fox be in charge of the hen house—and in this analogy, we're the hens.”
The move gives Santa Fe County 30 days—or more pending extension—to provide the court with the thousands of pages of records and transcripts taken from the aforementioned hearings held over the AES proposal. Once those records are turned over, CEC plans to ask for “an equal amount of time to review that record to ensure it is complete and accurate before it is formally submitted to District Court.”
So says a Nov. 22 email the CEC sent out to its members, which continues, “At that time, or shortly thereafter, we will file our statement of appellate issues with our arguments as to the exact grounds of the facts, law and due process violations upon which we believe the County’s decision was reached in error.”
The email goes on to explain the process could take between three and five months before the court is ready to consider the appeal. That further consideration, the email continues, “could take several months.”
“So, we could be looking at late spring or summer of 2026 before anything meaningful or significant will happen,” the email ends.”And there are plenty of things that could delay that even further.”
Dave Cathey
Dan Baker in his garage/workshop with a small lithium-ion battery energy storage system.
Unfair Criticism?
CEC’s drumbeat of dissent began shortly after the project was first proposed in August of 2022 and has helped it build a mailing list of more than 2,100 locals, but its actions aren’t celebrated across Santa Fe.
The mountain of records the county is preparing to send to the court will show no shortage of support for the project. Some are downright incensed about the pace of play.
“The system should be up by now,” Santa Fe resident and Rancho Viejo Solar supporter Dan Baker told SFR in a September interview.
Baker was immediately on board. He thought, “Oh, this is great! It's just what we need. It's a great spot, they have an interconnection right there. It's a low fire zone. It's like it couldn't be any better. I mean, literally—could not be a better spot in northern New Mexico. But then I started hearing there was this pushback”
Baker has been actively defending the project ever since, calling the actions of folks behind the CEC and others against it self-serving. He isn’t afraid to call out anyone who deals in what he calls “misinformation” about the project. He is quick to challenge anyone who fans the flames of what he calls fear-mongering, whether in person or on social media. He and a handful of fellow supporters patrol social media platforms to vanquish any perceived fear-mongering or misinformation.
“You should check out NextDoor,” he tells SFR. “It’s crazy what goes on there.”
Baker’s been accused of having a financial interest in the project by detractors, but laughs off the idea.
“I’m trying to put myself in semi-retirement with this thing,” he tells SFR. “Once the AES project goes through, it will definitely hurt my business.”
A trained mechanical engineer by trade, Baker says delays help his hobby-turned-cottage-industry solar installation service, EnviroKarma. He said he gets regular calls for home installation of solar panels backed by battery storage systems.
“The longer AES is delayed and the more fragile the grid becomes, it actually helps me,” Baker says. “Really, the more scary and more fragile the grid is, the better it is for my business. But it shouldn't be that way. I go back to the fairness of it all. Because the people who can afford it can put batteries in their own garage, but the people that can't afford it should be able to rely on the grid batteries. So, to me it's the unfairness that’s upsetting. They may not see themselves as oppressors, but they are.”
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SFR caught up with Baker at his home south of Interstate 25 in his garage/workshop. It’s the same garage where he first started converting car engines from standard high-combustion to battery-powered. Baker still has the Geo Metro he bought to convert his first engine. A newer car has a system he installed capable of powering his home for six days in a pinch.
A former technical instructor and sales pro, Baker could probably sell solar energy to a vampire. His passion for converting the current power grid is palpable, borne in part out of his concern for the current power grid.
“The broad picture is, we’ve lost half of Four Corners power already, and we're going to lose the rest of it soon—which is great. But where's power come from? ” Baker tells SFR.
He explains how Santa Fe currently is pulling lines in from Las Vegas through the National Forest with the rest coming from Albuquerque.
“There's two big lines coming in. As things heat up, people use air conditioners more, there ain't no power coming up from Albuquerque! They’re going to use it before we get any.” he says. “The other issue is we've already seen that the utilities are less and less likely to accept liability of keeping lines energized through forestry, because if they get caught being liable or negligent, they pay millions—hundreds of millions. So, then they turn the power off. We had two threats this last summer, but they never did it.”
Baker doesn’t believe those threats were idle, which is why, he says, the misinformation and self-serving propaganda frustrates him so. He says those who have pointed to battery energy storage systems (BESS) failures that led to fires in California and Arizona always ignore the bottom line.
“First thing you need to know, and maybe the only thing you need to know, about the safety of BESS systems is how many fires have spread beyond the confines of the containers—zero,” he says with a “zero” gesture. “So there have been seven fires at BESS facilities in the last five years. That’s about 2,000 containers. And typically, there'll be 20 to 30 containers at a site. None of the fires went beyond one container. None.”
Of course, four firefighters were injured responding to a BESS fire at Peoria, Ariz., but Baker points out human error.
“Those guys opened a door they shouldn’t have, and wouldn’t have with proper training,” Baker says. “I’m not trying to criticize the bravery of firemen, but when they opened that door they didn’t follow protocol and it sent fresh oxygen into the fire.”
Baker’s frustration is visible when discussing efforts to stop the project.
“What I see is a group of about 20 people, who are really good at narrative and sound smart, have some kind of credibility in some kind of circles or they find somebody who does and are good speakers and good storytellers—then they write a script. That doesn't work when we're talking about utilities and infrastructure, and what alternatives do we have—it's like, you are fucking people over. They just don’t want to have to look at it from their backyards,” Baker says from his own backyard and its full view of the high desert. “I get that, but I also think it’s selfish. I think the actions they’ve taken, the misinformation they’re sharing is a disservice to the rest of the community. They’re selfishness is the reason we don’t have solar power in Santa Fe yet.”
As for CEC’s latest action, Baker holds out hope the court will throw the appeal out.
“I don't see how CEC can meet the conditions of the court to be heard.”
The majority of concerns brought forth up to now deal with safety, which SFR’s first story on the project covered (Will Solar Energy Rise in Santa Fe Before Opportunity Sets?, Sept. 10). Baker believes AES covered all those concerns in its proposal.
“Everything they’ve proposed to build is backed by UL (safety) codes. Every building you walk in is backed with electrical power that has to meet UL codes,” Baker says. “Look, there’s no such thing as zero risk, and yes we have wind and wildfires in New Mexico,” Baker tells SFR. “That area out there has no kindling for a fire, but sure there could be a wildfire, but I’ll tell you this: the odds of that BESS being the cause of one are orders of magnitude lower than a cigarette tossed out the window or a lightning strike.”
Baker says, it’s ultimately a matter of trust, and that begins with AES.
Trustworthy?
Joshua Mayer is lead project manager for AES on the Rancho Viejo Solar project. the senior development manager heading into his 11th year with the company has been on it since inception.
Mayer calls getting the conditional use permit approval from the county “a significant milestone” after the two-and-a-half year process.
“In my experience, this project was the most mature project with the most advanced portfolio of diligence studies for conditional use permit that I've been a part of,” Mayer says. “This was an extremely well-documented project.”
Part of the reason for that, Mayer admits, is Santa Fe.
“We did a lot of studies that were not even required by the conditional use permit process on its own,” Mayer explains. “ When we heard of concerns folks were having about noise from the project, we volunteered to have an independent consultant produce a noise technical study to demonstrate the reach of any potential noise, we voluntarily put forward a preliminary hazard mitigation analysis that's usually something that's not done until you're closer to construction. We produced preliminary first responder mitigation guidelines and a pre-incident plan, all to set the stage and provide the foundation of what these plans look like based on the information today. They will be further updated and finalized should the project move forward to construction. So, that was kind of an advanced window for the community and for decision-makers to know the extent to which we will have plans in place and guidelines and safety assessments.”
Mayer says AES was also aware of concerns about thermal runaway from battery storage systems, so they completed a plume study that modeled various exceptionally unlikely but theoretically possible failure scenarios and produced the results of that study prior to reaching the Board of County Commissioners hearings.
“All of these things cost money, but that's not an issue. We're here trying to communicate effectively with the community,” Mayer tells SFR. “I can comfortably say most of the projects we permit are not required to produce that at this stage of development.”
Opponents like CEC question whether AES is using the safest available lithium-ion batteries for its BESS system. Mayer says AES is open to change going forward.
“We have presented a particular battery technology in our application, and that is the one we intend to use and deploy subject to the actual timeline of the project,” Mayer notes. “We always keep a view to the next generation from our product vendors. We're agnostic to specific battery chemistries, what we are most highlighting and evaluating is first and foremost safety aspects, so that any battery technology from any vendor that we consider meets all safety codes and standards, all these are assets central to preparing the insurability and access-financing.”
Mayer says after that, the company evaluates how changes impact operational costs both upfront and over the lifetime of the project.
“At the end of the day, it needs to meet the safety codes and standards that are current,” he says.”
According to Mayer, he and AES officials began meeting with county officials back at the outset.
“So already in 2023 we were having direct in-the-same-room conversations with the fire department just to answer their questions and let them know what these projects look like,” Mayer says.
He says the meetings were to offer insights into general preparation for a solar installation with BESS and what typical responses look like.
“Conversations also about what happens as the project matures and eventually does approach construction, including first responder training, development of emergency response plans and providing documentation so that first responders know where all their equipment is and to have a manual effectively identifying what different equipment is—things they're not accustomed to seeing in a traditional fire situation,” Mayer notes.
AES turned over documents to help inform firefighters of the redundant layers of safety that “our projects already include and that should hopefully, in the first place, avoid any first responder scenario from even coming about,” according to Mayer.
Mayer dosen’t believe local firefighters need any specific equipment to respond to incidents related to the project, saying “Our projects, for one, are designed so that in the exceptionally unlikely scenario of any kind of thermal vent, it is fully contained based on the design of where the containers are located.”
Because of that, according to Mayer, any response would be focused on protecting the perimeter and preventing spread beyond the facility.
“Otherwise, we do not even recommend the application of water on our battery containers,” Mayer tells SFR. “There's really no specific additional equipment that they would not already have, but we do invest and communicate on appropriate emergency response and training ahead of time.”
Mayer points out that any incident in the industry evolves codes and standards. He said some previous designs, like the October fire in Peoria, Ariz., allowed for personnel entry into a storage container, which ultimately created more risk for staff and first responders.
“More recent codes and standards are effectively all designed to have these containerized solutions with no entry,” Mayer says. “If you remove the opportunity for a worker to be within one of these containers, you then also remove the necessity of a first responder to have to approach them or have to approach a container at a close distance.”
The general trajectory of the industry, Mayer adds, shows a massive increase in deployment of battery energy storage.
“I think there was close to 15 gigawatts online at the end of 2023 that doubled to 30 gigawatts at the end of 2024, and there's forecasted to be another 18 gigawatts to go online by the end of this year,” Mayer tells SFR. “And that's all in relation to what's proposed, the 50 megawatt system. So it's actually 1/20 of a gigawatt. So, there's already, based on end-of-2024 numbers, 666 times the battery capacity that this project proposes already operating as we speak throughout the United States, and there's already ten times our proposed capacity operating in New Mexico as we speak, there's roughly over 500 megawatts.”
Mayer says batteries have a response time of milliseconds that helps operate the power grid safely and efficiently while “you may have spinning reserves or natural gas peakers that have a much longer response time to continue to ensure ongoing balance of demand and supply and frequency regulation.”
He believes batteries contribute not just to a higher penetration of renewables, “they also just make a more resilient, responsive grid that can be less prone to blackouts or brownouts.”
Mayer calls battery systems “a widely deployed resource that utilities across the country are valuing, and it's really making our grids a better place overall.”
NIAMBY, Not NIMBY
While local mechanical engineer Dan Baker trusts AES implicitly, local electrical engineer Randy Coleman does not. Coleman, who is CEC’s vice president and a resident of Eldorado, has been against the project long enough he’s been in conference with AES’s project manager. Asked why he doesn’t trust AES, Coleman points to a picture that includes himself, Mayer and the governor.
“We were at the same table, and he leaned out over to me one time, and he said, ‘Randy, what if I could tell you that I guarantee you there would never be a fire?’” Coleman tells SFR. “I looked at him and said ‘I would say, "You're a liar" is what I would say to you.’ I said to him, ‘Don't say it, because you and I both know it's not true.’”
Coleman and Zlotoff both tell SFR there is plenty to distrust about the global energy titan.
“We've done the research, and we think what they're selling us is a hoax. It's a fraud,” Zlotoff says. “We don't believe him (Mayer). And we don't believe them (AES). And by the way, if you choose to, you reach out to people in the electrical energy industry and they will tell you AES has the worst reputation in the industry. They are the cheapest, they cut the most corners, they don't care. That's not coming from me. That's coming from other people in the electrical industry that you can go out and verify that on your own.”
AES has faced penalties for environmental violations in the past. In 2023, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) fined the company $6 million for resource adequacy violations in California. They’ve also had run-ins with the Environmental Protection Agency resulting in penalties and increased monitoring of mercury emissions in the past.
“Did they talk about the plume study?” Coleman asks SFR.
When he learns Mayer did bring up the plume study, Coleman calls it skewed. He says the plume study AES provided didn’t use metrics followed by a study of a disaster at Moss Landing, Calif., where fire and smoke caused residents to shelter-in-place.
“They're testing is misleading,” Coleman tells SFR. “That plume study used a metric showing if there was a fire two-thirds of a mile away, the plume would be incapacitating, and would establish permanent damage to anybody who breathed it. But they used a metric not used every place else. It should have used a metric that answers how far the plume goes and creates instances of having to shelter-in-place. That's the metric that is used in California and they (AES) did not use that metric. And if they had used that metric, the study would’ve showed the plume could make people sick between two and three miles away. And they wouldn't publish it, and the county wouldn't let us enter that in as evidence.”
Coleman says the test was limited to show the impact of one container catching fire.
“They acknowledged elsewhere that because the containers were so close together, if one caught on fire, in all likelihood, two were going to get engaged in the incident,” Coleman says. “So, the plume studies should have doubled the plume. They didn't do that. This is what we mean by misleading. Proponents want to start the conversation about us with, ’Oh, they're NIMBYs.’ OK, now, take what I said about the plume study.”
Baker not only calls them NIMBY, he calls Coleman’s example misleading with the fact that none of the seven fires in the past five years left one container. Meanwhile, Coleman and Zlotoff point to the seven fires in the past five years as a trend Baker ignores.
“We just don't trust them, I think we have good reason not to trust them,” Zlotoff adds. “We think the county was sold a bill of goods until we came along and went, look at all the data. The data does not reflect the truth of what they're saying to you. This is why we think it's a fraud.”
He laughs off criticism of their cause.
“We're not NIMBY, we're NIAMBY—not in anyone's backyard,” he says.
In the end, CEC purports smaller microgrid systems are safer because there are fewer combustible batteries in the same place.”
“You’ve got to look at the number of batteries,” Coleman tells SFR. “When you increase the number of batteries, you increase the risk.”
Neither Zlotoff nor Coleman are against a project the size and scale of Rancho Viejo Solar as long as it’s not within a couple of miles of residential areas.
“The only people who are watching our backs is us,” Zlotoff says. “I'm sorry, that's the truth now. If anything goes wrong with this thing and Eldorado and Rancho Viejo and Rancho San Marcos or Santa Fe are affected by a fire at this facility, nobody is going to be here to take care of it for us, not the county, not the state, certainly not the federal government. We are watching out for everybody. I'm sorry that it comes down to us, but that's the truth right now.”
