Surry County’s Planning Commission has endorsed a proposed battery storage system off White Marsh Road.

Idaho-based Clenera is seeking a conditional use permit to use 32½ acres, or 7.8%, of a 416-acre parcel to construct the Bear Island Battery Storage facility, which would be capable of storing up to 320 megawatt hours of electricity, equating to four hours of 75-megawatt output. Company officials say the project site would span only 10 of those acres and be surrounded by a 100-foot vegetative buffer.

At the request of Clenera, county supervisors voted in April to approve a zoning ordinance amendment that allows and regulates battery storage facilities on agricultural-rural or industrial-zoned parcels by conditional use permit. Now Clenera’s application for that permit and a related determination that the project is in “substantial accord” with the county’s comprehensive plan is making its way through the approval process. The Planning Commission voted unanimously to recommend both at its June 23 meeting.

The concept calls for several rows of shipping container-sized outdoor units, each containing modules of individual battery cells that would be stacked similar to server towers at a data center and connected to a battery management system programmed to keep the units at an acceptable temperature.

A public hearing on the permit held prior to the votes drew only one speaker – David Tucker of Isle of Wight County – who urged against approval and said “comparative data is sparse” due to only a handful of battery facilities operating across Virginia to date.

Bear Island, if approved, would be the first battery site in Surry or Isle of Wight counties, though the emerging technology has become controversial in other localities for its fire risk. In 2024, Sussex County supervisors rejected the 4,800-acre Blackwater Solar farm that would have included on-site batteries capable of storing 1,200 megawatt hours, according to reporting by the Sussex Surry Dispatch. 

Bear Island, at 2,700 feet, or a half-mile, from the nearest solar farm, would not be tied to an existing or proposed solar facility. It would also be 2,300 feet from the nearest residence.

Clenera officials say the facility would increase the reliability of the power grid amid a rising demand for electricity a Joint Legislative Audit and Review Committee, or JLARC, report to the General Assembly last year said is being driven by the proliferation of data centers in Northern Virginia. The battery units would charge during a period of low demand, such as the early morning hours, and send out the stored power at peak demand, typically 5-7 p.m.

The Surry site has “been designed to fail safely” with automated fire suppression technology and “does not require manual firefighting operations, therefore, in the unlikely event of a fire, an Emergency Response Plan will be approved prior to construction,” the company’s literature states. The individual battery cells, modules, rack and battery management system that would be used in the facility proposed for Surry would also each be certified under the latest National Fire Protection Agency’s standards for the industry, Clenera representatives told attendees at an April 30 open house at the Surry County Community Center.

Ed Rumler, director of development for Clenera, also told attendees at the open house that the 12- to 18-month construction process would generate roughly one-30th of the construction traffic for a typical solar farm.