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In August 2025, Boston-based Longroad Energy filed an application to build a 945-acre solar and battery facility north of the Hollister airport. Though San Benito County staff deemed the application complete shortly after, it remains on hold as the county pursues an ordinance setting local rules for energy storage facilities.
Longroad’s Development Manager Laren Cyphers, who has years of experience in renewable energy projects, said this has been a first.
“We’re just an applicant trying to make a major investment in San Benito County. Right now, we’re stuck, and I don’t see a good reason why,” Cyphers told BenitoLink. “This is unlike anything I’ve experienced in other counties.”
The project, called Allium Solar, would sit north of Hollister on agricultural land bordering Highway 156, across from the Amazon warehouse, and stretching up to Hwy 25. Both the property owner and Longroad describe the site as low-productivity farmland. It would generate 110 megawatts of solar power and store an equivalent capacity in batteries—enough, the company claims, to power more than 110,000 homes during the four-hour peak demand window.
Longroad has been working on the project for the past five years, meeting with airport officials since 2021, attending public meetings and setting up a booth at the Hollister Farmers Market for the past two years.
With memories of the Moss Landing Vistra Power Plant fire still fresh, the San Benito County Board of Supervisors imposed a moratorium on energy storage projects in March and staff was charged with drafting a local ordinance to regulate them.
Supervisors cited safety risks as the reason for the ordinance citing the Moss Landing disaster, although Longroad and industry representatives say the warehouse-style design at Moss Landing has been replaced by containerized systems, which they say are considered safer.
The county’s current moratorium remains in effect until the ordinance is presented to the board, which was supposed to occur on June 9. The draft ordinance, County Counsel Gregory Priamos said, was expected to be posted June 4 or June 5.
However, on June 5, the county released a June 9 board meeting agenda without a draft energy storage ordinance that includes a scheduled public hearing with a staff recommendation to adopt an urgency ordinance to extend the moratorium for more than 10 additional months while staff continues work on an energy storage ordinance.
In the alternative, according to the staff report, the board can direct staff to proceed with review of a draft energy storage ordinance without a moratorium that would first go to the county Planning Commission on June 17 and then to the board on June 23.
But a county permit is not Longroad’s only path.
California has designated battery energy storage systems, known as BESS, as essential to its clean energy transition. In 2022, the assembly passed Assembly Bill 205, a streamlined route allowing developers to seek project approval directly from the California Energy Commission (CEC).
Under the program, known as opt-in certification, the CEC weighs local ordinances and concerns as part of its environmental review. The commission can approve a project, even when conflicts with local rules remain, if it finds that the benefits outweigh the impacts.
“It’s really hard to see how we could meet our local energy goals and our statewide goals without battery energy technology,” Central Coast Community Energy’s director of government and community relations Das Williams told BenitoLink.
A former state assemblyman, Williams added that moratoriums like San Benito’s can end up hurting the counties that impose them.
“We have this weird situation where more and more communities across the state are reacting out of understandable fear, but not fact-based or data-based decision-making, and doing moratoriums and bans,” he said. “Local bans and moratoriums are bad for local control. They encourage developers to go the state route instead of respecting local standards.”
Longroad is still committed to pursuing local approval and is looking forward to seeing the standards county staff will present, Cyphers said. But pursuing the state permitting process has not been ruled out.
“Starting our relationship with the county by overriding local authority is not how I want to end, but also I do want to build this project,” Cyphers said. “We do have the optionality to go down that path. I think this is the exact situation that AB 205 was passed for.”
The Santa Cruz mirror
In December 2024, Massachusetts-based New Leaf Energy filed an application with Santa Cruz County to build a battery storage facility in north Watsonville. Weeks later, the Moss Landing fire broke out, and community concerns around these types of projects intensified, ultimately leading the Santa Cruz County Board of Supervisors to amend its battery storage ordinance with stricter rules.
After reviewing those rules, Lookout Santa Cruz reported, New Leaf decided to explore the state permitting process in April 2026. The developer told Lookout that it’s pursuing both paths to stay on schedule to secure a permit in early 2027.
Williams told BenitoLink that the problem was that Santa Cruz’s local ordinance required a higher level of mitigation than for any other use on farmland.
“It was a higher level of mitigation in theory than an oil and gas project or a housing project or anything else,” he said. “That’s the kind of case that encourages developers to go to the state. It’s well-intentioned, but it encourages them to go to the state.”
Williams pointed out that there are cases, like Monterey and Orange counties, where local rules have been approved and developers pursue them.
“Orange County requires a certain setback from schools,” Williams said. “That’s not in state code, but it is something that was important to Orange County. I think the California Energy Commission would probably respect that because Orange County’s ordinance is not a de facto ban. It’s not so restrictive that someone cannot site a facility.”
In April, San Benito County Counsel Gregory Priamos told the board that with a local ordinance the state will, “to the extent possible,” condition their permit on compliance with the local ordinance.
“It continues to be my understanding that the state will consider our local ordinance and may condition in whole or in part any state permit on compliance with our local ordinance,” he told BenitoLink. “That will be a discretionary decision for the state after considering all relevant facts and the specific terms of the new ordinance.”
The CEC does consider a local ordinance as part of its environmental studies when evaluating a project’s impacts, but it can ultimately override them. The CEC’s commissioners make the final decision.
“When a project seeking opt-in certification through CEC conflicts with any law, ordinance, regulation, or standard, including a local standard, it is automatically included as part of the CEC’s California Environmental Quality Act [CEQA] analysis, and may contribute to a finding of significant environmental impacts,” CEC Senior Information Officer Stacey Shepard told BenitoLink. “As part of that analysis, CEC staff evaluate whether there are feasible mitigation measures or project modifications that could reduce those impacts to a less-than-significant level. If impacts cannot be fully mitigated, the CEC still has authority under CEQA and AB 205 to approve a project, including in situations where conflicts with local standards remain.”
Pursuing local approval
The electricity Allium would generate is under contract with Marin Clean Energy, the renewable energy provider for Contra Costa, Marin, Napa, and Solano counties. But Cyphers and Williams argue that even though there’s a financial agreement with Marin Clean Energy, the energy would first serve San Benito County, thereby strengthening the local electrical grid.
“The regulatory benefit and the financial benefit may go to the people that are buying that energy, but the resilience benefits, the electrons actually go to the local community, no matter what, because it’s physically connected to the local community,” Williams said.
Cyphers also said the county would benefit from “tens of millions of dollars in tax revenue” over the project’s operating life, which Longroad estimates at 35 to 40 years. She said that would likely include a significant property tax increase on the site, but was unable to be more specific, as she said it’s too early in the process and the company has not yet done a detailed economic study.
A key reason for this, she said, is timing. California’s property tax exclusion for active solar energy systems, which has shielded the value of new solar installations from property tax assessment, is set to expire on Jan. 1, 2027. Because Allium would not enter service until after the tax exclusion sunset, the project would pay full property taxes to San Benito County.
She added that the company would also pay sales tax on all construction equipment bought in the county and would hire local construction workers.
To help the county draft the local standards, Cyphers connected county staff with Mike Nicholas, a consultant with statewide experience on BESS projects.
“Mr. Nicholas was very helpful in providing technical information and sharing his experience working with BESS projects in other jurisdictions,” Priamos told BenitoLink. “His input has been informational in nature and has helped staff better understand industry practices, fire and life safety considerations, and approaches being taken by other agencies.”
Priamos added that county staff have also spoken with representatives and reviewed ordinances from Solano, Santa Cruz, and Ventura counties, among others. “The county’s approach has been to gather information from a wide range of technical experts, public agencies, and existing regulatory models to help inform development of a comprehensive and locally appropriate ordinance,” he said.
One of the factors that has affected the processing of Allium’s application has been a staff shortage. The San Benito County Planning Department went from five employees to one last year. “That is not an issue that is necessarily unique to San Benito,” Cyphers said. “I’m seeing it all over the state, but it feels particularly acute in San Benito.”
Priamos acknowledged that the reduction in planning staff has created challenges, but said staff have continued reviewing the process and consulting experts to draft the ordinance. “While reduced staffing levels can affect the pace at which complex projects move forward,” he said, “the County remains committed to conducting a thorough and informed review process that addresses land use compatibility, environmental considerations, and public health and safety concerns.”
“The question for San Benito is whether they get to shape Alium locally with conditions tailored to this community by people who know the community, or whether projects like this end up shaped at the state level,” Cyphers said. “We’re choosing the local path. We just want to be able to walk it.”
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