Vistra announces the first in a series of community meetings to engage with and listen to residents as part of its evaluation of its proposed energy storage center at the site of the retired Morro Bay Power Plant following the City of Morro Bay’s publication of a Draft Environmental Impact Report (EIR) on March 11, 2024.
The first meeting will be held on Wednesday, March 20, from 6 – 8 p.m., at Del Mar Elementary School Auditorium, 501 Sequoia Street, Morro Bay, 93442.
The Morro Bay Power Plant has sat idle for nearly a decade. The City’s publishing of the draft EIR is the next step in the local consideration of the company’s actionable plan to move the plant and community forward. Deploying proven, zero-emission energy technologies on a portion of the former plant site will enhance the stability and reliability of the state’s grid and add a dispatchable electricity resource to provide power to the regional and state grid during periods of peak demand.
“Vistra is a national leader in the responsible retirement, remediation, and redevelopment of legacy power plant sites because we believe each plant site is unique and requires a deliberate and thoughtful approach,” said Claudia Morrow, Senior Vice President of Development for Vistra. “Our plan puts ratepayers and residents of Morro Bay first, with a reasonable proposal to reuse the site’s preexisting interconnection infrastructure on land historically used for power generation while allowing for the eventual master planning of the remaining property to improve the Embarcadero and the harbor for the benefit of future generations.”
For decades, the Morro Bay plant site and the broader San Luis Obispo region have been home to critical generation and interconnection points for the state’s energy grid. In addition to generation assets, several high-capacity transmission lines, switchyards, and substations operate in the area. Energy storage assets must be built and operated at critical points along the grid. The preexisting regional infrastructure that ratepayers paid to develop and maintain over decades makes the Morro Bay plant site ideal to help solve the region’s energy security challenges.
State leaders responsible for maintaining the reliability of California’s electrical grid are focused on increasing the supply of assets that can store excess energy produced during the day and dispatch the saved electricity during peak demand hours after sundown. The proposed Morro Bay energy storage center is a needed regional resource based on preexisting usage and generation patterns. It is independent of any other generation project under consideration in the region.
“While our company manages the nation’s second-largest fleet of energy storage facilities, we recognize that the operations are new to the residents of Morro Bay and look forward to continuing our dialogue in the weeks and months ahead,” said Morrow. “For more than 140 years, our company has been adapting to technological changes in our industry to honor our commitment to provide residents and businesses with reliable access to electricity so that modern society can function.”