Residents filled the public comment period at Oshtemo Charter Township Board meeting on May 27, 2026 with a unified message: battery energy storage facilities do not belong in residential or agricultural zones, and the township needs to adopt its own ordinance before the state takes that decision away.
The board heard them and made clear the work is already underway.
What’s at stake
Battery energy storage systems, known as BESS, are large-scale facilities that store electricity purchased at low overnight rates and release it back to the grid during peak demand. They are typically sited near electrical substations and can cover significant acreage. Developers have been identifying potential sites across Michigan, and some of those sites are in or near residential areas.
The concern in Oshtemo is not hypothetical. Residents at the meeting referenced previous ordinance drafts that would have allowed BESS installations in rural residential zones and questioned why the township would contemplate that when it already has industrial zoning specifically designated for uses of that scale and risk.
What residents said
A longtime Oshtemo resident and small business owner with a background in electrical work, made the most detailed case. He described the economics of BESS operations, buying electricity at low overnight rates and selling it back during peak hours, with the profit margin effectively built into the consumer energy rate system, and argued that the financial benefits flow to developers and utilities, not to the communities that bear the risk.
The risk he described is fire. Lithium-ion battery fires, he explained, generate an exothermic chemical reaction that produces its own oxygen, rendering conventional firefighting methods including foam ineffective. He cited a California facility fire that burned and reignited for 35 days, leaving toxic residue across the surrounding area. “To place BESS installations in zones other than industrial is unconscionable,” he told the board.
He also raised the state preemption question directly. Michigan Public Act 233, he argued, was designed to standardize BESS siting statewide, but its practical effect is to reduce local control. Municipalities that adopt a compatible renewable energy ordinance aligned with the state’s baseline standards can retain local authority over siting. Those that don’t risk having the Michigan Public Service Commission step in. He urged the board to move quickly, using model ordinance language from the Michigan Townships Association.
A second resident, who lives within range of a potential BESS site, focused on emergency notification. She referenced a comment reportedly made by a fire official that residents would be notified in the event of a fire by a marshal going around with a megaphone, which she called unacceptable. She urged the board to prioritize industrial-zone placement in any compatible ordinance and to get clarity from the fire department on what the actual emergency response plan would look like.
A third commenter put it more bluntly: given the documented fire risks and the inability of emergency responders to extinguish lithium-ion fires, he said the only sensible answer is not to allow these facilities near people at all, industrial zone or otherwise.
Where the board stands
The board is further along in this process than Tuesday’s public comment period might have suggested to anyone hearing about it for the first time.
The planning director has engaged an outside expert with a master’s degree in electrical engineering to help work through the technical standards embedded in any BESS ordinance, specifically NFPA 855 and the UL standards that govern battery storage installations. One board member, who has been working through those standards himself, confirmed that NFPA 855 does require both audible and visual alarms that must be monitored. He also pushed back gently on the megaphone characterization, suggesting the comment may have described a secondary notification method rather than the primary one.
The supervisor noted that two additional recommendations had come in from residents: requiring an environmental impact study as part of any approval process, and some form of community health and social impact assessment. She drew a parallel to Graphic Packaging, referencing the impacts that industrial facility had on its surrounding neighborhood as a reason to think broadly about what “impact” means.
The township is working to produce a compatible renewable energy ordinance, one that gives Oshtemo Township local authority over siting decisions rather than ceding that ground to the MPSC. The urgency residents are expressing reflects a real deadline: that window closes if a developer applies for siting approval before the township has a qualifying ordinance in place.
What to watch
The planning commission is the next venue for this work. Residents who have been showing up at board meetings for months, one noted Tuesday that he has been raising these concerns for nearly ten months, are also beginning to submit written input and have delivered formal presentations to the planning commission.
Oshtemo Township’s master plan, completed after more than a year of work and adopted recently, retained and expanded the township’s industrial zone. The residents who spoke Tuesday want that decision honored.
