AMHERST — A series of conditions aimed at protecting groundwater and a buffer zone for bordering vegetated wetlands will allow Amherst’s first stand-alone battery storage to move forward.

The Conservation Commission at its Jan. 11 meeting unanimously approved the requirements under which an 18.87-megawatt lithium ion battery system can be constructed on a vacant North Amherst parcel owned by the Chang family of South Deerfield, where a garden and gift store was located for many years.

The commission’s approval came after Wetlands Administrator Erin Jacque said she is comfortable with the containment system that will be used at the 515 Sunderland Road property, near the Sunderland town line.

Jacque said she coordinated with Josh Lariscy, project development director for BlueWave Solar, and the company’s engineer Drew Vardakis to protect against any contamination from the batteries.

“We want to get it right and make sure we’re properly dealing with a situation where there is a breach and materials released,” Jacque said.

Among the changes since the project was first proposed last summer are no longer having a permeable membrane beneath the batteries, and adding a concrete lip around each battery storage bed so water and any contaminants will be contained within the pad. There is also an elaborate piping system and storage tanks, with those tanks releasing water into infiltration trenches.

Jacque said that between the concrete pads and containment around the batteries, there are multiple lines of defense.

“I think this is as close to a fail-safe as we’re going to get,” she said.

If an alarm sounds when there is a breach, there will be an immediate response by the solar company so no contaminants migrate into the soil.

Under a worst-case scenario, Vardakis said, the two 2,500-gallon tanks below the batteries should have enough storage to hold contaminants, even if all batteries leaked at one time and a large rainstorm coincided with the leak.

Commission Chairwoman Jenn Fair said the protections are a compromise between letting healthy rainfall fall onto the ground and infiltrate the soil, and protecting groundwater from contamination from the batteries.

Battery energy storage systems enable energy from renewables, like solar, to be stored and then released when customers need power. Lariscy told the commission that the project fits the state’s Clean Peak Energy Standard program that promotes renewable energy. The project is being developed for BWC Eastman Brook LLC of Boston.

Plans show six concrete pads to hold inverters, transformers and electrical switch gear, a number of battery containers, and crushed stone on which the equipment would be placed. Development would take up about 7,500 square feet.

A U-shaped gravel driveway that formerly was used for Annie’s Garden and Gift Store, with its building demolished in the spring of 2019, remains and would access the system, surrounded by a chain link fence 7 feet high.

Lariscy said all work would be done outside the 50-foot no-work wetland zone.

Scott Merzbach can be reached at smerzbach@gazettenet.com.]]>