A battery energy storage system proposed for a one-acre parcel on Creelman Lane will be discussed July 7 at the Ramona Community Planning Group meeting.

The battery storage system is designed to increase the grid’s capacity for renewable energy sources, said Jarod Cole, operations manager for EnerSmart Storage Holdings LLC, which initiated the project.

The batteries can charge up during the night when electricity is plentiful, then discharge power during the day when the grid is stressed and demand for energy is high, Cole said.

“Over time this will lower the cost of energy during peak hours, and (energy availability) will be more consistent across the board,” he said. “Ultimately, it results in cleaner air and increased public safety because it will take the place of coal-fired peaker plants and other non-renewable resources.”

The project would include 39 storage containers — each about 30 feet long, 5 feet wide, and 8 feet tall and holding a series of lithium ion batteries, Cole said. The containers would be placed on concrete equipment pads spaced about 5 feet apart.

The project is set for 39 megawatts/78 megawatt hours of energy storage, said EnerSmart Storage Co-CEO and managing partner Marc La Magna. In theory, that energy capacity could provide clean power to 14,000 homes for two hours and provides daily support to the electrical grid in the area, La Magna said.

Planning Group members will consider whether to recommend that the county approve a minor use permit for the project on property that is zoned for limited agriculture.

Solana Beach-based EnerSmart is in the process of developing 12 sites in San Diego County with battery energy storage systems, Cole said. The intent is to increase the grid’s capacity for renewable energy sources and help California reach its 2045 goal of sourcing its energy from 100 percent renewable energy supplies, he said.

The first EnerSmart system is planned to be operating in Chula Vista by the fourth quarter 2022 followed by another system in La Mesa targeted to be complete in the first quarter 2023. The Ramona system is scheduled to be completed at the end of 2023 and up-and-running at the beginning of 2024.

But residents who live near the site on the north side of Creelman Lane between Ashley and Keyes roads say they are concerned the project could increase noise, change the character of their rural neighborhood and reduce their property values.

“I liken it to installing 39 buses running their diesel engines at 3,000 rpms,” said Rob Romeo, a Creelman Lane resident. “Even though the noise is not busting your eardrum, noise is noise and it will travel. We’re in an agriculture, rural environment where the only noise we hear is coyotes.”

Cole said sound walls would be installed on the southern and western sides of the property to protect neighbors to the south and southwest from noise generated by the batteries. Each battery does not make a lot of noise by itself, he said, but the combination of a group of batteries can.

The only other disruption would be quarterly service checks with two EnerSmart staff driving a truck to the site, he said.

Some residents say they already have too much equipment in their neighborhood.

The battery energy storage system would connect to a substation on the south side of Creelman Lane via underground lines. That would ultimately connect to SDG&E’s substation roughly 60 feet south of the project through an underground electrical line.

In addition to the substation, a 16-acre SDG&E solar power plant was added to the neighborhood in 2014, Romeo said.

He said he worked with SDG&E for two years on that project to get concessions that included partly paving the road, adding landscaping around the substation and planting bushes and trees in yards that are in the line of sight of the project.

Romeo said he plans to attend the July 7 meeting to get more details about the project.

“I’m always willing to listen,” he said. “I’d like to hear their plan and find out what they’re going to do. If they pave the road that’s big because it’s a dust bowl here. Creelman is a dirt road and it gets rippled all the time. They grade it three or four times a year.”

Creelman Lane neighbor Francie Stepp-Bolling said she prefers to keep Creelman a dirt road so she can ride her horses on it. She said she likes the rural nature of the neighborhood that has mostly 4-acre and larger properties.

“The speed goes up if they pave the road,” Stepp-Bolling said. “That’s a big concern of mine, and water runoff is worse. If they pave that road people will use it instead of Hanson Lane to get up to Julian and it will be like a highway here. We already get motorcycles on the weekend going through.”

Stepp-Bolling said she plans to attend the meeting to find out how many homes can be powered by 1-acre of batteries and to ask what the noise impacts will be.

“My understanding is there wouldn’t be noise, but I’ll ask to see what kind of noise there will be,” she said. “If there are fans all night long that would be irritating. But I believe people have a right to do what they want to do with their property.”

The Planning Group will meet at 7 p.m. at the Ramona Community Library, 1275 Main St.

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