Mesa's Planning and Zoning Board on Wednesday, Oct. 28, takes up a pair of battery energy storage sites near Ellsworth Road and Starfire Avenue in southeast Mesa, where the SR 24 freeway meets Salt River Project's Scott substation.
Ellsworth Energy Center LLC, a subsidiary of NextEra Energy Resources, is the applicant for both, according to project narratives filed by its Mesa land-use lawyers, Pew & Lake. Ellsworth I covers about 21.8 acres south of Starfire and is planned at roughly 160 megawatts. Ellsworth II, about 20.3 acres across Starfire, is planned at roughly 190 megawatts.
The narratives say the two would be built at the same time and run as one 350-megawatt, eight-hour facility tied to the SRP substation, and that SRP is in final contract negotiations for the storage.
The narratives point to rising power demand nearby: a data center already built north of the Scott substation and a 158-acre Novva data center campus approved north of Warner Road for 300 megawatts.
Filed under the old rules
Mesa adopted a battery storage ordinance in January that took effect Feb. 12. City staff reports say battery facilities are not a listed use in the Light Industrial district, but both applications qualify as legal procedurally conforming uses because complete site plans were filed Feb. 9.
Staff reports say each project meets the ordinance's added requirements, which include an operational plan, a good-neighbor policy and an initial sound study, but one of them hinges on another vote.
The ordinance requires 1,000 feet between a battery site and any residential zoning. Both sites are now closer than that to land zoned for apartments at the southwest corner of Ellsworth and Starfire, about 450 feet from Ellsworth I and 75 feet from Ellsworth II.
A separate request on the same agenda, View 202, would rezone 17.1 acres of that corner to light industrial and 4.5 acres to commercial. Staff say the battery sites would clear 1,000 feet if that rezoning is approved.
Two neighborhood meetings drew two residents each, staff reported. They asked why the sites are needed, how fires are prevented, whether the storage serves data centers, what happens at the end of the batteries' life, how much noise to expect and whether power bills would rise.
