South Orange County residents and elected officials representing the region are raising wildfire concerns about a proposed battery storage facility that could get built on the northern edge of San Juan Capistrano.
Residents and elected officials railed against the proposal last week at a California Energy Commission meeting that lasted over 10 hours — while dozens of speakers emphasized concerns of wildfire risks for the facility planned near homes and schools.
The project applicant, Compass Energy Storage, has submitted an application to the California Energy Commission, asking to construct a battery storage facility on land currently owned by Saddleback Church near the city’s border with Laguna Niguel.
Representatives speaking on behalf of Compass Energy at Thursday’s meeting said that the kinds of batteries proposed for the project undergo extensive testing and pose a low fire risk. They also mentioned that if a fire did break out, the design of the facility would keep the flames contained to a single area instead of spreading.
The facility would be built on 13 acres of land, featuring lithium-iron-phosphate batteries connected to the energy grid that can store excess power and release that energy back into the grid when necessary.
These facilities — referred to as Battery Energy Storage Systems (BESS) — are generally viewed as a positive step toward clean energy solutions since the batteries can help store and provide surplus energy, helping reduce the need for additional fossil fuel generation at high-need times.
But South Orange County residents have spent the past several years largely opposing this proposed facility due to its location near homes, schools and high fire-risk zones.
The San Juan Capistrano City Council has already voted multiple times to prohibit the construction of new commercial energy storage systems in town after the applicant previously submitted requests at the city level.
After the city rejected the project, the applicant turned to the state instead, filing an application through the California Energy Commission, which has the power to bypass the city’s previous rulings and approve the project — as allowed under Assembly Bill 205.
The California Energy Commission recently boasted that the state is a world leader in energy storage, with the largest fleet of batteries that store energy for the electricity grid.
As of April 2025, the state has approximately 15,700 megawatts worth of battery storage capacity throughout various storage facilities.
The state estimates that 52,000 megawatts of battery storage will be needed by 2045. The proposed facility would be able to store 250 megawatts. There is also a battery storage facility in Stanton that can store 69 megawatts.
The commission held its first public meeting at the Capistrano Unified School District board room on May 29, allowing members of the public and government officials to voice their opinions on the proposed project.
During a public comment period that lasted about seven hours last Thursday, speakers voiced opposition to the facility due to concerns of fire, public safety, environmental impacts and subsequent effects on insurance coverage and property values.
A few speakers did support the project to advance the state’s progress toward clean energy infrastructure, emphasizing the facility will be constructed with the highest safety standards.
The commission has a second public meeting scheduled for June 3, beginning at 10 a.m. That meeting will be remote only and will provide another opportunity for community feedback. The commission is not expected to make a final decision at that meeting.
Moving forward, the commission will complete various assessments, including an environmental impact report, which is expected to be published in the fall as the commission continues to consider the facility.
Officials Voice Concerns About Public Safety
San Juan Capistrano Mayor Troy Bourne, who also serves on the Orange County Fire Authority board of directors, spoke at length about the negative impact the battery facility would have on his community.
While he said he would support a BESS facility in San Juan Capistrano, he said that the specific location is inappropriate.
“The applicant has told us there’s a less than 1% chance that these batteries catch fire, and I believe that that’s factually true,” Bourne said at the meeting. “We have to recognize that we’re rolling that 1% dice again and again, and there has to be some common sense recognition that there is some meaningful, appreciable probability that there will be an inflammation event at this site.”
He emphasized that risk might be okay to take in order to move toward a future of clean energy — but not at the proposed location.
Bourne raised creek erosion and stability issues, paired with landslides at nearby bluffs, have prevented any kind of safe development on that site for decades.
“There are safety issues that have nothing to do with battery storage facilities, and I think it is stunning that the applicant mentioned not one of them in their presentation,” Bourne said.
“I can’t picture what a location would look like that was worse suited for this,” he said.
While the development would be located within the city of San Juan Capistrano, it would fall between the I-5 Freeway to the east and homes in Laguna Niguel to the west.
Laguna Niguel Mayor Ray Genneway also spoke at the meeting in opposition to the project due to its proximity to his community.
“Many of these facilities throughout the country are built in remote, sparsely populated areas,” he said. “The difference is striking when you see how many homes are surrounding this project site.”
Orange County Supervisor Katrina Foley also spoke in opposition of the project, calling it a “terrible idea.”
“We cannot move forward to a sustainable future at the expense of public safety and common sense,” she said.
Rep. Mike Levin, who represents north San Diego County and south Orange County, submitted a letter to the California Energy Commission urging them to reject the proposed location.
“The project would be situated near sensitive areas — relatively close to homes and adjacent to Trabuco Creek — and alongside critical infrastructure — primarily, Interstate 5,” reads Levin’s May 27 letter. “Should there be any kind of disaster at the project, nearby residents may be severely impacted, as could the water quality of the creek. Any extended shutdown of I-5 would hurt the commerce of our region.”
Assemblymembers Diane Dixon and Laurie Davies both attended the meeting to speak out against the construction of the battery storage facility.
Earlier this year, Davies introduced AB 615, legislation that would require any applicant submitting an application to the California Energy Commission for the development of an energy storage facility to also submit an emergency response plan with the initial application.
A Trend of Disasters at Battery Storage Facilities
A battery storage facility known as Moss Landing in California’s Monterey County ignited in January 2025, causing the evacuation of about 1,500 residents and complaints of health concerns like headaches, coughing and sore throats.
There have also been multiple fires at battery energy storage facilities in San Diego County over the past two years, including one at the Terra-Gen facility in Valley Center, one at the Gateway Energy facility in Otay Mesa and the most recent at the SDG&E BESS facility in Escondido.
Many speakers at Thursday’s meeting pointed to the Moss Landing incident as an example of what could happen in Orange County if the facility were to move forward.
Representatives from the California Energy Commission said that the Moss Landing facility used different technology that posed a higher fire risk than what’s being proposed in San Juan Capistrano.
The Moss Landing facility, built in 2020 by energy company Vistra, was an indoor facility, while the proposed project would utilize outdoor containers to store the batteries.
Additionally, the Moss Landing facility used nickel-manganese-cobalt types of batteries, different from the ones proposed for the south OC facility.
Compass Energy Storage representatives said the new facility would utilize lithium-iron-phosphate batteries that are less likely to produce thermal runaway — rapid acceleration of heat that can cause fire.
Spokespeople also emphasized that any thermal runaway produced by lithium-iron-phosphate batteries, while extremely rare, typically does not produce embers that could ignite a wildfire.
Christian Ng, a licensed fire protection engineer for Fire and Risk Alliance, worked as a fire safety consultant on the project with the applicant. He spoke during the meeting to address fire concerns, describing the types of batteries proposed for the project and required safety testing will ensure low wildfire risk.
“The Compass project is provided with outdoor containerized units where a fire, if it occurred, would be limited to a single unit. The battery components for BESS have to undergo extensive third-party testing,” Ng said.
“We have prepared a hazard mitigation analysis,” he said. “This outlines the BESS components and how it can meet code requirements such as the California Fire code. The site plan has been designed for safety with spatial separation as required by the code. In addition, it includes a fire detection system which will alert the fire department if there is a fire at the facility.”
Many speakers maintained their stance that any risk, no matter how small, is not worth the potential harm.
“If a fire occurs at Compass Energy’s proposed facility, a two-mile evacuation would require the evacuation of over 37,000 people in Laguna Niguel alone,” Mayor Genneway said. “That number does not include residents of San Juan Capistrano, Mission Viejo, Laguna Hills or any other community.”
“If that evacuation radius was expanded to an eight-mile radius, like it was in Moss Landing, we’re talking about hundreds of thousands of people that need to evacuate.”
Angelina Hicks is the Voice of OC Collegiate News Service Editor. Contact her at ahicks@voiceofoc.org or on Twitter @angelinahicks13.