A California battery plant that caught on fire this week is the same plant that went up in flames in January.
The San Francisco Chronicle reports that around 6:30 p.m. on Tuesday evening, officials reported smoke coming from the Vistra battery facility.
Local residents were asked to shut their windows and doors.
“Public Safety Agencies are in Unified Command due to light smoke and fire at the Vistra Battery Facility in Moss Landing. Unified Command continues to monitor the situation and community air particulate matter and metals monitoring are ongoing,” the Monterey County Department of Emergency Management wrote on Facebook. “Out of an abundance of caution, safety agencies urge residents to close windows and doors overnight. Updates will be forthcoming.”
The cause of the fire is still under investigation.
Last month, the Monterey County Sheriff’s Office issued evacuation orders after a fire erupted at the Moss Landing battery plant. The battery storage plant, owned by Vistra Energy, houses thousands of lithium batteries that store electricity generated from renewable energy sources.
Heavy metals were found in the soil following the fire.
Researchers affiliated with San Jose State University discovered higher concentrations of the metals nickel, cobalt, and manganese in Elkhorn Slough, a location near a battery storage plant that recently went up in flames.
Dr. Ivano Aiello, a marine geology professor and the department chair at Moss Landing Marine Laboratories, said the “findings and the research that follows are crucial not only to the impacted community but to the national and international community because of the need to store more power and thus build more and larger battery storage facilities.”
“This is a new and fastgrowing technology, and we must understand the ecological impacts in the event that accidents like this happen again,” he stated.
