A recent legal decision involving the South Ripley Solar Project illustrates exactly why many local officials were unhappy with the creation of the Office of Renewable Energy Siting by Gov. Andrew Cuomo back in 2020.

The 270 megawatt solar project comes with a 20 megawatt battery storage project as well. The battery storage project runs afoul of a law passed earlier by Ripley Town Board members in response to town residents — including firefighters — who fear the technology is untested and potentially unsafe after high-profile issues including a fire at Tesla’s Victorian Big Battery in Australia, an overheating incident at the Moss Landing Energy Storage Facility in California and a fire at a 10 megawatt battery energy storage facility at the Salt River Project in Arizona.

Town officials responded with a Battery Energy Storage Systems law allows only battery energy storage systems needed for home energy systems and not allowing battery energy storage systems for business or commercial use — such as those tied to a 270 megawatt solar project. When the South Ripley Solar Project’s permit application was deemed ready, the town’s battery law stood in opposition to the permit and prompted a review by an administrative law panel.

Oral arguments by an administrative law judge panel were held recently, with Doug Bowen, Ripley town supervisor, telling Ripley Town Board members recently that the 82-page decision told the town, essentially, to go pound salt.

According to a summary prepared by Ben Wisniewski, Ripley’s attorney in the matter, the crux of the decision was that “the town cannot prohibit BESS, because any and all BESS facilities are critical to the state’s renewable energy goals. This means ORES’ official position is that no town in the state has the ability to prohibit BESS.”

The ruling should surprise no one. What happened with the Ripley battery energy storage law is just what the state set out to do back in 2020 — remove any speed bumps in the state’s rush to meet its self-imposed renewable energy deadlines.

Our question is this — if the state has decided local government shouldn’t be trusted to make big decisions, why doesn’t the state just make all the decisions and get rid of all local governments?