Vistra's battery facility in Monterey County, California, was built in three phases and is located on an existing power plant site. The energy storage facility enhances grid stability, fills the reliability gap created by intermittent renewables, and provides emission-free electricity to support California's sustainability goals and mandates. Vistra’s Moss Landing site includes three battery project phases:
Note: In 2022, a fire occurred at an adjacent facility owned by a different company, and it did include an evacuation order. Vistra was not involved in that incident. This fire event is often mistakenly attributed to Vistra.
Overheating Due to Water
While two previous incidents have been described by some as fires, they were not. Both incidents, one in Moss 300 in September 2021 and one in Moss 100 in February 2022, involved a small number of leaks in the water-based heat suppression system that sprayed water on batteries, causing overheating that led to smoke: however, neither occurrence led to fire. Both of these incidents were controlled and had no impact on the general public.
Root cause investigations, which included industry experts, equipment manufacturers, and Vistra, were made public and continue to be available publicly online.